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Art. XV.— analysis OF SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 



I. A Dictionary of Chemistry, on the Basis of Mr, Nicholson's^ 

 in which the Principles of the Science are investigated anew, 

 and its Applications to the Phenomena of Nature, Medicine, 

 Mineralogy, Agricidture, and Manufacttires, detailed. By 

 Andrew Ure, M.D., Professor of the Andersonian Institution, 

 ^•c. Sfc. With an Introductory Dissertation, containing in- 

 structions for converting the alphabetical Arrangement into a 

 systematic Order of Study. — London, 1821. 



It appears to us, that the misconception of a single word, 

 has frequently led chemical teachers and writers into strange 

 errors of arrangement. The term Element in reference to 

 philology, arithmetic, geometry, and music, denotes not only 

 whatever is most elementary in principle, but whatever is simplest 

 in conception, in these sciences. From this two-fold con- 

 currence, we are warranted in employing the letters of the 

 alphabet, numeral notation, general axioms, and the diatonic 

 scale, as the primary objects of contemplation to their students. 

 But chemical elements appertain to a far different order of con- 

 ceptions. Instead of being the objects which naturally present 

 themselves at first to the inquirer, they form, for the most part, 

 the ultimate points of his researches. Their simplicity is but 

 a name relative to the stage of our advancement in the science. 

 The bodies which we at present call chemical elements, are 

 probably all compounds ; and are certainly the least easy of 

 apprehension to the learner, because they possess properties 

 the most remote from those of the bodies with which his senses 

 are daily conversant, and are disentangled from combination 

 by processes not a little circuitous and intricate. 



On the other hand, as the common and obvious properties 

 of matter constitute the elementary principles of general 

 physics, these justly form the initiatory propositions. This 

 condition of natural philosophy allows the plan of tuition 

 to resemble an architectural process, in which a house of a 

 symmetrical plan is regularly raised from its foundations. But 

 the actual state of chemistry is not susceptible of the same com- 

 parison. It may be likened more properly to a tree, whose 

 trunk and main branches are easily traced and delineated, but 

 the efflorescence which terminates the boughs, requires the 

 most delicate microscopic research before we can discover the 

 vital germ, the true element of fructification. Hence we perceive 

 that elementary instruction in chemistry, is not that which treats, 

 first of the elementary or undecompoundcd bodies ; but, that 

 which beginning with the familiar and tangible objects of study. 



