The Naval, Constructor. George Simpson, M. I. N. A. 585 pp. 6 1/2 X 4 inches. Flexible leather. Price $5.00. The S. Van Nostrand Co., New York. The rapidly increasing importance which naval architecture and construction is assuming in the curriculum of technical schools and which will become even more prominent with a more general application of the steam turbine as the motive power, makes any book written by an author of such wide experience as Mr. Simpson, of the greatest practical value. The above handbook has been prepared with the object of supplying a ready reference to those engaged in the design, construction or maintenance of ships, - such a work as should give simply and concisely information on most of the points usually dealt with in the theory and practice of marine architecture, and in addition much that is new and original, all of which is in line with present day requirements.

Photographic Amusements. Walter E. Woodbury. 114 pp. 9x6 inches. Paper. Price $1.00. The Photographic Times Pub. Asso., New York. The purpose of the author in writing this book was not to prepare an instruction book of photographic practice, but to present the novel and curious effects that can be obtained by the aid of the camera. It requires but a slight examination of its pages to show that the author has been eminently successful. Here we learn how our fishermen friends are photographed as witnesses to their piscatorial skill, how a man can wheel his own head in a wheelbarrow, become a tall, lean man, or a short, fat one, and numerous other photographic " stunts, " which prove of interest to the amateur photographer who likes to experiment.

Steel as a material of construction has made its way because of its strength, its resistance to the elements, or because of its economy of space, or for other resons appealing to the engineer. It is evident in the apparently increasing dangers of crowded modern life, that steel will come into increasing use because it affords greater security to human life. In the past twenty years the metallurgical engineer and the mechanical engineer have worked together to cheapen it so that the civil engineer could employ it more freely. It is safe to predict that a still larger factor in the steel tonnage of the future will arise from uses which are optional today, but which public sentiment will then make compulsory.-"The Iron Age. "