APPENDIX I. 



NOTICES OF BOOKS. 



The Flowering Plants of Western India. By Rev. Alexander Kyd Nairne. London : W. 1 1. 



Allen & Co. 

 Although Mr. Nairne has brought together a large number of interesting facts concerning 

 the plants of Western India, there is evidence on almost every page of his little book of his in- 

 competence for the task which he has attempted. Indeed the botany is beyond serious criticism, 

 and the extracts from a great variety of books relating to the properties, uses, and distribution 

 of the plants were evidently not made by a person sufficiently acquainted with the subject to 

 exercise any sort of discrimination. 



An Introduction to Chemical Crystallography. By Andreas Fock. Translated and edited by 

 William J. Pope. Oxford : The Clarendon Press, 1895. 



This small book of 184 pages is intended to supply the student with such of the important 

 truths of crystallography as are of especial service in the study of chemical problems. Of course 

 it is impossible within the limits of so small a volume to deal exhaustively with the various 

 divisions of the subject, and occasionally the treatment is far from adequate. This is parti- 

 cularly evident in the chapters dealing with the nature of crystals and the laws of crystallisation, 

 and again in the chapter on solution, which is the most superficial in the book. On the other 

 hand the book contains much that is excellent. It is significant that the work of Willard Gibbs 

 finds a place — work of such importance to the chemist and so long overlooked by him, no 

 doubt on account of its generality. Roozeboom's development of the analogy between the 

 solubility of mixed crystals and the evaporation of mixed liquids is also treated with sufficient 

 fulness to give the reader an idea of its scope and importance. The chapters on double salts, 

 isomorphism, physical isomerism, and the relations between crystalline form and chemical 

 composition are particularly good, and contain much having the most direct bearing on 

 chemistry. 



On discovering a new substance nothing delights the heart of the chemist more than to 

 obtain it in well-defined crystals, yet when he obtains his heart's desire after analysing the 

 substance he, in general, determines its melting-point, and considers that the determination of 

 other physical properties is unnecessary. The shortsightedness of this policy is clearly brought 

 home by numerous instances of substances having several melting-points varying with their 

 crystalline condition, and the suggestion made in the translator's preface that observations in 

 the polarising microscope should always be made with new crystalline substances merits the 

 attention of all workers in this field of chemical research. 



The book would be improved by the addition of a chapter dealing with the crystallo- 

 graphic terms used — axial ratios, mass-points, etc. —many of which are not familiar to the 

 chemist. Nevertheless the book may, on the whole, be recommended as giving a brief and 

 interesting historical account of the nature, origin, preparation, and properties of crystals. 



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