70 



A Manual of Chemistry, chiefly for the Use of Pupils 

 of Mechanics' Institutions. By Andrew Fyfe, M.D., 

 F.R.S.E., &c. Edinburgh, 1825. 



This little book scarcely deserves the name which the author 

 has conferred upon it, — it is not a handful, but a mere pinch 

 of chemistry ; and though it may answer very well as a text- 

 book for his course of lectures, cannot be commended as a 

 work of reference, or as holding out any temptations to the 

 general scientific reader. It is, moreover, disfigured by a set 

 of villainous wood cuts, to which the doctor, however, seems 

 passionately attached ; for he repeats the same block several 

 successive times, where mere reference to it would have been 

 sufficient. — Thus, at page 15, is a most clumsy representa- 

 tion of a furnace, with a tube passing through it, for the 

 decomposition of vapours ; and this ugly thing is reiterated 

 at pages 109, 121, 129, 141, 165 (without the retort, but 

 the same cut), and lastly, at page 197 : and an equally unin- 

 telligible portrait of a retort and gas-receiver occurs at pages 

 5, 14, 17, 122, 151. This, in a little book of 300 pages, is 

 too bad. 



But Dr. Fyfe*s information is not always correct, especially 

 upon points of importance and interest to those whom his 

 Manual immediately addresses. Hops, for instance, are de- 

 scribed as the seed-pods of a plant much cultivated in Eng- 

 land ; and at page 244, we are told that the brewing porter 

 is carried on in the same way as that of ale and beer, with 

 this difference, that the malt is prepared in a peculiar way. 

 -*« It has been already said, that that used for ale is dried by 

 the application of a slight heat. In making malt for porter, 

 a much higher temperature is applied, by which it is slightly 

 burned, so that the wort got from it has a dark colour, and 

 a peculiar bitter taste." We believe few porter-brewers 

 would grow rich if they thus employed slightly -burned malt. 

 But lastly, Dr. Fyfe says, that *' gin, or Hollands, is always 

 prepared by the Dutch :" this may possibly do for an Edin- 

 burgh audience, especially after the elaborate account of 

 ** whiskey" which precedes the above quotation ; our Lon- 

 don mechanics, however, know better ; few of them, as we 

 apprehend, being unacquainted with the merits of Hodges' 

 full proof 



Upon the whole, however, though there are many marks 

 of haste, and some of carelessness, visible in this compilation, 

 we are ready to admit that it is not ill adapted for a text- 



