20 JUNE 1914, Page 24

natural philosophers should have had to wait more than two

centuries for a copious biographer. The "father of chemistry and uncle to the Earl of Cot-k" is perhaps adequately com- memorated by the fact that, in English-speaking countries, his name is permanently attached to the law that the volume of a gas is inversely proportional to the pressure. Elsewhere we regret to say that this law is known by the name of Mariotte, in consequence of an unedifying controversy about priority. Miss Masson treats Boyle's scientific career in a somewhat perfunctory manner. On the merely human side her hook is both full and interesting ; it proves her to be an apt pupil in the school of her learned father.