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LXI. Notices respecting New Books. 
Chemical Essays, principally relating to the Arts and Manufac- 
tures of the British Dominions. By Samuet Parkés, F.L.S., 
Member of the Geological Society, &c. in Five Vols., with 
Twenty-three Copper-plate Engravings. Price 2/. 2s. 
Tx our last volume, p. 48, we gave an article on the Citric Acid, 
extracted from this work, and:in a note promised to lay before 
our readers some further account of this very interesting and en- 
tertaining production. We hoped toe have done so before this 
time; but have been prevented by a pressure of temporary subjects 
which would have lost much of their utility by a delay; and 
besides, Mr. Parkes’s work contains so large a mass of curious and 
original matter, that it required some time to make such a selec- 
tion as might render justice to so useful, judicious, and laborious 
a writer. 
The work consists of Fifteen distinct Essays on the following 
subjects : 
I. On the Utility of Chemistry to the Arts and Manufactures 
of Great Britain.—-Il. On Temperature.—III. On the various 
methods of ascertaining the Specific Gravity of Bodies. —IV. On 
Calico Printing —V. On Barytic Earth.—VI. On Carbon.— 
VII. On the Manufacture of Sulphuric Acid.— VIII. On the Pre- 
paration and Uses of Citric Acid.—IX. On the fixed Alkalies.— 
X. On the Manufacture of Earthen Ware and Porcelain.— XI. On 
the Manufacture of the different kinds of Glass —XII. On the Art 
and Practice of Bleaching —XIII. On Water, and the various 
Methods of its Purification—XIV. On the Manufacture of Sal 
Ammoniac.—XV. On Edge Tools, and the methods of tempering 
them. 
The last volume of this interesting publication contains 250 
additional notes, which are written in a perspicuous manner, and 
contain so much important information as to form a very valuable 
appendix to the work. A most copious and useful index, an ap- 
pendage too often omitted in modern works, closes the volume. 
It will not be expected that we should make extracts from 
every essay; but we shall endeavour to give some of the most in- 
teresting and useful parts of the work, for the information and in- 
struction of our readers. - 
In the first essay, which is on the utility of a knowledge of 
chemistry to the arts, we are told that ‘ formerly the professors 
of medicine were so ignorant of the nature of the salts, that no 
longer ago than the year 1765 there was a public dispute between 
the celebrated Margraff and Mons. de Machy, respecting the base 
of the super tartrite of potash, whether or no it was an alkali.” 
In 
