Notices respecting New Books. 299 



" Bodies which burn in common air, burn, when ignited in oxygen 

 gas with increased splendour. It is necessary to the respiration of 

 animals ; " while of nitrogen he says, " It does not support combus- 

 tion, and all burning bodies immersed in it are in an instant extin- 

 guished." " It is eminently irrespirable, and no animal can live in 

 it beyond the briefest period." Now we should like to know what 

 "differences in the chemical characters" would be sufficient, in the 

 opinion of Prof. Low, to " allow us to assume," respecting two 

 bodies, that " one is derivative and the other simple," if those which 

 he has himself stated with respect to the gases in question, be not 

 strongly enough marked for the purpose ? 



We must now take leave of Prof. Low, not for want of subjects 

 requiring remark, but because we are really tired with our occupa- 

 tion ; and in parting we fairly and fervently express the strongest 

 and well-grounded hope, that " we ne'er shall look upon his like 

 again." 



A Memoir of the Life, Writings and Mechanical Inventions of Edmund 

 Cartwright, D.D., F.R.S., Inventor of the Power-Loom, $c. 

 London, 1843, 8vo, pp. viii. and 372. With Engravings in Wood. 



This work is interesting as a biography from the picture it exhibits 

 of the contest between innate genius and external difficulties. For 

 the first half of his life Dr. Cartwright was a cultivator of the field 

 of literature. Accidental circumstances having turned his attention 

 to mechanical inquiries, he suddenly entered upon a new line of re- 

 search, and speedily accomplished the difficult problem of producing 

 a steam-weaver, — a machine by which the uniform rotation of a me- 

 chanical power was resolved into the complicated movements of the 

 loom. His ideas having once entered this new channel, never wholly 

 recovered their former direction, but were chiefly applied during the 

 remainder of his life to subjects of a scientific or mechanical nature. 

 His machines for combing wool, for making ropes, for working cranes ; 

 his patent bricks for forming arches without abutments, his agricul- 

 tural experiments, and a host of other investigations, are all proofs of 

 the activity and ingenuity of his mind, while his correspondence with 

 Fulton, Davy, Crabbe, Sir W. Jones, Sir Stamford Raffles, &c, pos- 

 sesses great historical as well as personal interest. His whole life 

 was divided between the ornamental and the useful, specimens of 

 both which are given in the Appendix to this memoir, which contains 

 a poem eulogized by Sir W. Scott, and an Experimental Essay on 

 Manures commended by Sir H. Davy. All who duly appreciate the 

 vast amount of manufacturing prosperity for which Great Britain is 

 indebted to Dr. Cartwright's inventions, will be interested by peru- 

 sing in this work the successive steps by which those gigantic results 

 were attained. 



This Memoir has an especial claim on the attention of the readers 

 of the Philosophical Magazine, from the fact of the subject of it 

 having been one of our earliest contributors. The first article of 

 our first Number, published in June 1 798, was a description, accom- 

 panied by a figure, of Dr. Cartwright's patent steam-engine, in which 



