13 MARCH 1915, Page 23

Sir Hiram Maxim', autobiography, Hy Life (Methuen and Co., 16a.

net), is a chronicle of inventions, for the Maxim gun was only the climax of a long series of ingenious devices in many different branches of mechanical science. The volume gives us, moreover, a vivid enough impression of its author's personality, of his rather cynical common-sense, of his dry humour, of his self-confidence, and of his intolerance of the innumerable incompetent and stupid people it was his mis- fortune to come across. Altogether, Sir Hiram Maxim's string of anecdotes, his conversations with crowned heads, his disputes with rival inventors, and his straggles with bungling workmen make up an entertaining book.