REVIEWS 547 



Chemistry and its Borderland. By A. W. Stewart, D.Sc. [Pp. ix + 314. 

 With 11 illustrations and 2 plates.] (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 

 1914. Price $s. net.) 



We hear much in these times of the great opportunity which has come to British 

 commerce, of taking over numerous industries in which Germany has hitherto had 

 a prominent part or a monopoly. Although many of the industries which have 

 been named are within the immediate powers of our manufacturers to develop, a 

 considerable proportion of them are so much the outcome of German chemical 

 research, that without a full understanding of the relations between research and 

 trade it would be impossible for us to include them among our spoils of war. This 

 is, of course, realised by our industrial authorities ; but to judge from newspaper 

 correspondence, not a few of the public seem to think that all that will be required 

 is to subscribe capital, erect plant, and go full steam ahead forthwith. Let those 

 who are of this way of thinking read Dr. Stewart's book, and they will get some 

 idea of the extent of their fallacy. They will learn that if they want new industries 

 they must get into touch with pure science ; that if a nation says in effect, " What 

 is the good of research ? " it will be answered, in a most distasteful manner, by 

 some other nation which is more enlightened. 



And if any of these readers are already convinced on these points, they will 

 find great pleasure in following the author's delightful accounts of the ramifications 

 of chemistry in all sorts of directions. His method of exposition, and his striking 

 similes, bring the recent main advances of chemistry within the grasp of any lay- 

 man of good education, and there is not a teacher nor a researcher who will not 

 gain something as he reads. 



The book would be valuable alone for the sake of the discussion of the present 

 state and the promotion of research ; and it may give a fillip to the growing feeling 

 of scientific workers throughout the country that it is time that their labours met 

 with a more adequate requital from those who profit by them. 



Methods of Quantitative Organic Analysis. By P. C. Kingscott, D.I.C., 

 A.R.C.Sc, A.I.C., B.Sc. (Lond.), and R. S. G. Knight, D. I. C, A.R.C.Sc., 

 A. I.C., B.Sc. (Lond.), (Carnegie Research Scholar). [Pp. x + 283, with 

 diagrams.] (London : Longmans, Green & Co., 1914. Price 6s. bd. net.) 



The authors do not state whether this book is intended for the use of students or 

 as a book of reference for advanced workers, but it is certainly very difficult to 

 imagine a student learning how to perform a combustion from the account given 

 on pp. 25 to 27. Apart from the somewhat unusual place assigned accord- 

 ing to the diagram on page 26 to a " spiral containing fused lead chromate or 

 silver gauze," the account given is far too scrappy, not to say racy, and describes the 

 completion of the operation in the following words — "At the end of this period, 

 the absorption tubes are removed, disjointed ! (the note of exclamation is ours), 

 and the ends of each absorption vessel are protected by caps." Passing on to 

 the estimation of nitrogen by KjeldahFs method, the reader is instructed to heat 

 a known weight (without any indication as to the quantity to be taken) of substance 

 with 20 c.c. of concentrated sulphuric acid over a very small Bunsen flame nearly to 

 boiling point for about an hour, and then to " add about 8 gms. of powdered K.,S0 4 

 and heat again for about £ hour.'' There is no suggestion that the heating should 

 be continued only so long as is necessary to render the liquid a light straw colour 

 and the addition of copper sulphate or mercury is not described as a routine opera- 

 tion, but would appear only to be necessary in certain specified cases. The state- 



