Some Recent Mathematical Books

Abstract

IF former periods of the world's history were characterized as the “Stone,” “Bronze,” and “Iron” Ages, the present epoch might well be entitled the “Book” Age. Amidst the flood of literature of all sorts which daily pours out of the jaws of our printing leviathans, didactic mathematics certainly claims its due proportion. The number of Algebras, Euclids, Arithmetics, and Trigonometries which appear, with the “rough ways made smooth and the crooked ways straight,” make us regard the modern student with a mixture of envy and pity—envy at the possession of such broad highways to knowledge as we never dreamt of, and pity at the difficulty he must experience in choosing out of such a multitude. We cannot, moreover, help fancying that this plethora of books is not entirely without compensating disadvantages, for the very ease and tranquillity which which the student glides through the cleared forest, make him care less and inattentive of the land-marks and salient features that were so carefully noted by his more self-reliant, if less luxuriously-equipped, predecessor. Euclid. Part 1, Books I. and II. By H. S. Hall F. H. Stephens. (Macmillan, 1887.) Algebraical Exercises. By H. S. Hall S. R. Knight. (Macmillan, 1887.) Key to Todhunter's Mensuration By Rev. L. McCarthy. (Macmillan, 1886.) Explanatory Arithmetic. By G. E. Spickernell. Third Edition. (Simpkin, 1887.) Plane and Spherical Trigotiometry. By H. B. Goodwin. (Longmans, 1886.) Spherical Trigonometry. Part 2. By W. J. McClelland T. Preston. (Macmillan, 1886.) Solid Geometry: Solutions. By P. Frost. (Macmillan. 1887.) Elementary Statics. By J. Greaves. (Macmillan, 1886.) Differential Calculus. By B. Williamson. Sixth Edition. (Longmans, 1887.) Differential Calculus. By J. Edwards. (Macmillan, 1886.) Algebra. By Oliver Wait Jones. (Ithaca: Finch, 1887.) Practical Solid Geometry. By W. G. Ross. (Cassell, 1887.)