NOTICES OF BOOKS AND MEMOIRS. 309 



gen," " tartarate of antimony," and ''chloride of bar yum," and 

 should be corrected in a new edition. The atomic weights of 

 carbonate of lime and oxalate of lime, given respectively as 625 

 and 1025, are not those adopted in other parts of the work, or in 

 fact in any text-book of the present day, aiid will puzzle the 

 student. When dealing with the preparation of certain substances, 

 like cyanine or anthocyan, the method of preparing it is given; but 

 we fail to find any reference to the flowers from which this curious 

 body can with advantage be extracted. When w^e look up " Cellu- 

 lose " we are referred to " Fibrin," which, however, is not given at 

 all ; the properties of cellulose are treated of under the heading 

 "Fiber," where we seek in vain for any reference to Durin's 

 remarkable observations on the conversion of cane-sugar into cellu- 

 lose: By far the most interesting researches in the branch of 

 organic chemistry treated of in this work are those which have 

 resulted in the synthetical formation of some of the more impor- 

 tant constituents of plants — for example, the synthesis of indigo 

 effected by Emmerling and Engler, of alizarine by Graebe and 

 Liebermann, and of conine by Hugo Schiff ; we fail, however, to 

 find any record of these very valuable contributions to our know- 

 ledge of plant-chemistry. The base occurring in Mercurialis annua 

 and M. perennis, which had been termed, for want of a better name, 

 mercurialine, was shown some time since by Schmidt to be mono- 

 methylamine. Monomethylamine is a body of very simple consti- 

 tution, and the fact that its presence has been detected in a plant 

 is one of the greatest importance and interest. 



A series of tables of the specific gravity of alcohol of different 

 degrees of concentration, of atomic and molecular weights, and of 

 thermometric scales, form the conclusion of the volume. 



A book of the kind which Baron von Mueller has aimed to 

 provide for scientific students is much wanted. If a second edition 

 of this translation of Wittstein should be called for, the translator 

 may materially improve this work, in fact might produce the text- 

 book which is at present sought for, by submitting these pages, at 

 present singularly free from idiom, to an English friend for revision, 

 and to the scrutiny of a reader acquainted with the form and style 

 of the chemical nomenclature now in use. W. F. 



Monographic Phanerofjnmarum, Prodromi nunc Continuatio nunc 

 Eevisio. Auctoribus Alphonso et Casimir DeCandolle, 

 alhsque botanicis ultra memoratis. Vol. I. Smilacea, 

 Restiacea, Meliacca. Parisiis, G. Masson. June, 1878. 

 The conclusion of the* ' Prodromus' with the seventeenth 

 volume, in 1873, gave Prof. DeCandolle the opportunity of 

 placing before botanists the reasons which rendered it impossible 

 for him to continue that great work in a systematic manner. '•'■ The 

 promise which he then also gave of publishing a sort of con- 

 tinuation in the form of monographs of natural families, in any 



See Journ. Bot., 1874, p. 58. 



