BOOK REVIEWS A Scientific Autobiography of Joseph Priestley (1733-1804)
Edited with commentary by Robert E. Schofield, Case Institute of Technology, Cleveland, Ohio. M. I. T. Press, C a m 415 pp. 16 x 24 bridge, 1967. xiv cm. 513.50.
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Schofield's previous publications dealing with Priestley testify to his competence in this field. in other words he is thorouehlv " versed in'what Priestley wrote and did and whet has been published by others about the English divine and amateur natural philosopher. In the present volume Sehofield has elected to present an idea of the development of Priestley's scientific ideas (especially chemical) as revealed in his vast correspondence. "These letters give an insight into Priestley's private speculative thinking that his puhlished writings, however discursive, do not give. They reveal more of his relationships with contemporar) scicnl~ir~. Inore of hid infltwwc on ard his debli ro rhr wierltifiv thinking of rhr day ttnn can by ohtnined withmlt the most &arching analysis of his books and papers. They constitute a continuous firsthand account of Priestley's scientific career, which for the most part has yet to be drawn upon to any significant degree. The failure adequstely to use these letters is primarily the result of their inaccessibility. Most of the letters that have survived are scattered in orivate hands and
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archives throughout the world. The mejority of them have never been previously published, or have appeared scattered in the published correspondence of other men, in historical journals, or the pages of Unitarian periodicals. Two collections of Priestley letters have appeared but are now almost ss hard to find as the original letters themselves." . . . "The letters in this volume have been selected from a total of more than four times their number, covering the period from 1762 to Priestley's deeth in 1804. Most of the Priestley letters are principally concerned with theological subjeots, although many of these also mention or discuss scientific problems. . The letters chosen for republication are those of greatest scientific and autobiographical interest, which repeat neither themselves nor the content of other The letters previously published.. bulk of the correspondence to Priestley wes burned in the Birmingham Churchand-King riots of 1791; the remainder was burned by Joseph Priestley, Jr. on his father's death in what seems now an excessive regard for the privacy of the writers." A great debt is owing to the author for carrying out the immense labor expended in making these letters available. Though many of them have little or no scientific significance now they give a glimpse of what was going on in the minds of Priestley and his correspondents and they present a valuable behind-the-scenes view. They ahorevealinterestingfsctsregarding Priestley's disregard for punctuation, spelling, etc. Schofield has assessed Priest-
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ley's contributions t o chemistry s t its true value; he admires Priestley's experimental skill but prefers to regard him as a n a b ural philosopher rather than as a chemist. "It is only in retrospect to the revolution won by Lavoisier's new-model chemistry that it becomes clear that Pririestley was not only not a. good chemist, but may not have been a chemist at all." I t must be remembered that Priestley began his chemical work a t the age of around forty; he was essentidly self-taught in thk field, and alwwsvdued observed factsfar above theoreticil explanations. His chemical discoveries were compressed within s few years and though he continued ta dabble and publish in this area up to the time of h k death his later work was largely disregarded by the younger men in the field. This book is rendered much more valuable by Schofield's excellent comments; without his penetrating remarks and analyses this would simply be mother and rather dry collection of letters written and received by some famous scientists, etc. Schofield assumes that the readers of this hook are acquainted with the facts of Priestley's life; hence this is not a, stsndard biography to be put into the hands of students who have not done the necessary preliminary reading. Accordingly, the bulk of chemists will find this book of little or no interest but cognoscenti will welcome it. Special attention is directed to the A p pendixes. The first gives the sources of the letters read and possibly included in this collection. The second gives adequate biographical sketches of the men with whom Priestley corresponded. The third Appendix, possibly the most valuable, presents "the most nearly complete listing of Priestley's scientific writings-including their varying editions, translations and reprintings-availitble anywhere." The volume closes with a General Bibliography that will be useful to many readers and others. In short, this book is recammended to those interested seriously in Priestley. RALPHE. OESPER University of Cincinnati Cincinnati, Ohio The Design and Analysis of Scientific Experiments
K . C.Peng, General 3Mtoors Corp., Warren, Michigan. Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., Reading, Massachusetts, 1967. ix f 252 pp. Figs. and tables 17 X 24 om. $12.50.
I t must he said at the outset that scientific experimentation per se is not treated in this book. The author narrows his view to the statistical aspects of designed experiments. The standard design topim, e.g., factorial and fractional factorial experiments; fired, mixed, and random models; response surfaces; covariance, are each briefly treated. Computer programs, written in Fortran for the IBM 7094, are given for factorial experiments, Graeco-Latin square experiments, and fractional factorial experiments with factors at two levels. (Continued on page A1OOS)
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Journol of Chemical Education
BOOK REV1E W S The reader is expected to have a good grounding in elementary statistics and, to m&e full use of the book, should have some knowledge of calculus and elementary matrix theory. The target groups for the book are said to be "statisticians, computer progrmmers, and persons engaged in experimental work." The author has done well in giving brief accounts of essentially all the major st* tistical procedures associated with designed experiments. The presentation is concentrated and accurate. The section on response surfaces is psrtioulady well done but could have been quite a bit longer. Sometimes, however, the needs of experimenters are net well served as in the shod section on designs for paired obsemations, where very lit,tle is given on a most important subject. At other times, too much is given (BS on lattice designs) for a book of this size. One quite serious omission is the lack of discussion of analysis of
link between statistics and the real world of the experimenter. His choice of title permits this to he a criticism. LLOYDS. NELSON General Eledric Lamp Dkivion Clarelend, Ohio
troductions, at the intermediate level, to most of the techniques required in statistical design. The experimenter will not be well served by this book if he needs to be shown the connection between mathematia 1 model and reality. Numerical examplesare used, but the data are both artificial and trivial. The author does not address himself to developing the connecting
Volume 44, Number 1 1, November 1967
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