92 REVIEWS. 



in crystalline scales, having the appearance of micaceous iron ore." Bro- 

 mine, too, we are told, is a gas.; this Turner tells us "is a liquid, the 

 colour of which is blackish red," and that it is three times heavier than 

 water. The gaseous nature of fluorine also is dogmatically taught, 

 although every one that has learned chemistry knows that the properties 

 of this substance, in an insulated state, are not known, and that Baudri- 

 mont's imperfect guesses on the subject are all we have. 



Are these lessons intended to be the boy's first introduction to the 

 Temple of Science, or merely as interesting summaries of what he may 

 have learned before in the lecture-room of his school ? In the former case 

 the boy believes all that he is told, and then we have to contemplate the 

 melancholy picture of his pure mind being burthened with three at any 

 rate two grievous errors, almost before he takes his first step. In the 

 latter case, if the effects be not so positively injurious, they are, at least, 

 confusing. Which of the two is the boy to believe his lecturer, who 

 exhibits a bluish-black solid in one phial, and a dark red fluid in another, 

 calling one iodine and the other bromine, or the so-called leader of science, 

 who pronounces them both gases? 



We are exhorted by an ancient moralist to reverence youth. The duty 

 is incumbent in intellectual no less than in moral culture. A single error 

 or careless statement uttered before a boy tends to check his mental growth 

 just as much as an indecent word or a pernicious doctrine to ruin his 

 morals. We have dwelt, perhaps, too long upon this topic, and shall, 

 therefore, pass over, without criticism, the other parts of this absurd 

 attempt at classification. A single error in a book should not procure its 

 condemnation it may occur through inadvertence, through haste in trans- 

 cribing, or some cause difficult to explain. The fact of its being an error 

 of this pardonable kind is not unfrequently proved by a correct statement 

 of the same thing in the next paragraph or next page. Can this be the 

 case in the present instance ? the reader may ask. We regret to say that 

 it is not so. The next paragraph shows the error to be deliberate ; and 

 the remainder of the article abounds in errors which it would be difficult, 

 in the same number of pages, to parallel in any other book that ever saw 

 the light. We shall dismiss the subject by briefly noticing those which 

 are most prominent in the order in which they occur. 



Iron pyrites is called a sulphuret of iron ; it is a bi-sulphuret. 



" Although each mineral has one simple crystalline form, yet that form 

 admits of many modifications, according to the ways in which it may be 

 split or cleaved." This statement is altogether erroneous, although it is 

 commonly believed by sciolists. 



