128 Anahjais of Scientific Books. 



to the tyro, who is just commencing the study, than any other 

 that I have yet seen." On the contrary, we affirm, without fear of 

 contradiction/rom any chemist of the age, that it is worse adapt- 

 ed for the tyro, ivho is just commencing the study, than any other 

 compilation which we have yet seen. 



Dr. Thomson divides his simple bodies into two classes ; 

 imponderable and ponderable. The former are light, heat, 

 electricity, and magnetism ; the last of which he declines to speak 

 of as being foreign to chemistry. But surely magnetism has a 

 closer connexion with the science, particularly in its metallic 

 and mineralogical department, than many of his trite trans- 

 cripts, on the velocity, refraction, and reflection of light, from 

 elementary books of physics. On the article light, we have 

 few remarks to offer, except to complain of its darkness. The 

 unintelligible paragraph on polarization shews that the Doctor 

 does not understand one iota of the subject, as indeed the world 

 has been long assured, from his reports of papers on polarized 

 light inserted in the Annals of Philosophy. His theory of the 

 colours of bodies is very characteristic of his style. " Some ab- 

 sorb one coloured ray, others another, while they reflect the rest. 

 This is the cause of the different colours of bodies. A red body, 

 for instance, reflects the red rays, while it absorbs the rest. 

 A green reflects the green rays, and perhaps also the blue and 

 the yellow, and absorbs the rest. A white body reflects all the 

 rays, and absorbs none ; while a black body, on the contrary, 

 absorbs all the rays and reflects none*." Moli^re's professor 

 theorized with equal spirit and profundity ; 



DomanJabo causam et rationem quare ojiium facit dormire. 



Mihi a docto doc-tore, doniandatur causam et rationem, quare opium 

 facit dormire ? A cui respoudeo, quia est in eo, virtus dormitiva, cujus 

 est natura, seusus assoupire. 



Bene, bene, bene respondere ! Dignus, digaus est intrare in nostro 

 docto corpore t. 



The change produced on plants by the sun, he ascribes gra- 

 tuitously and erroneously to the absorption of light. " The third 

 and not the last singular of its peculiar properties, is, that its 

 particles are never found cohering together, so as to form masses 

 of any sensible magnitude |. " Its particles repe/ each other, while 

 the particles of other bodies attract each other ; and accordingly 

 are found cohering together in masses of more or less magni- 

 tude." This is sad prosing. Have the sun and stars no sen- 

 sible magnitude ? Do the particles of gaseous bodies " cohere 

 together?" He states the velocity as a peculiar property of light, 

 though afterwards, with due inconsistency, he ascribes the 

 same velocity to caloric. " Light is emitted in every case of 

 combustion." If Dr. Thomson had been well versed in modern 

 discovery, he would have said, " Light is not emitted in every 



* Vol, I. page 20. f Le Malade Lnaginaire. J System, I. 23. 



