382 Notices respecting New Booh. 



gen, See. The question is not which is the better arrangement, but 

 their dissimilarity is obvious. 



Under the head of Attraction we look in vain in Dr. Fyfe's work 

 for any account of the doctrine of definite proportions or atomic 

 theory. It is singular that so great an omission should have been, 

 committed by Dr. Fyfe, knowing as he must the very important 

 changes which this doctrine has effected in the science of which he 

 was treating : for not only has it reduced the facts which were known 

 previously to its existence, to order and regularity, but it has given to 

 chemical investigations a certainty of which they were before com- 

 paratively destitute. It is indeed by this doctrine that we are en- 

 abled to explain certain facts respecting affinity, which were before 

 referred to the action of mass. 



Although we have thus begun at the commencement of Dr. Fyfe's 

 work, Vie have neither time, space, nor inclination to follow it mi- 

 nutelv to the close : nor is it to be considered that the mistakes or 

 omissions which we shall point out, are all that the work contaitis. 

 We have opened the book almost at random j and unfortunately it is 

 difficult not to find various statements which require careful revision, 

 or not to observe numerous deficiencies to be supplied. 



When treating of Nitric Acid, it would in our judgement be reason- 

 able to suppose that the mode of preparing it would be given, as 

 well as a statement of the proportions of oxygen and azote of which 

 it is constituted : but there is not one word on either subject. When 

 the author, in a subsequent part of the work, is treating of Nitrate of 

 Potasii, we do indeed find that the acid is to be procured by decom- 

 posing that salt with sulphuric acid : and it is perhaps natural that 

 Dr. Fvfe should recommend for this purpose, the very disadvan- 

 tageous proportions of sulphuric acid and nitrate of potash, to be 

 found in the Edinburgh PharmacopcEia. 



Although no mention is made of the proportions of oxygen and 

 azote which form nitric acid, yet that they do constitute it is cer- 

 tainly admitted by our author : and he informs us, " that if a metal, 

 as iron, be put into it, the iron acquires oxygen and is converted into 

 an oxide." " This experiment shows," adds Dr. Fyfe, " that oxygen 

 is one of the ingredients of the acid." Now it appears to us, that 

 neither the fact nor the inference deduced from it are properly stated ; 

 for in the first place the acid must be either diluted or heated, in 

 order to insure action between it and the iron ; and in the next 

 place, as that which would prove too much in any case is not allowed, 

 to prove any thing, we cannot admit th;it the oxidizement of the iron 

 proves that the oxygen is derived from the nitric acid. If this proof 

 were allowed, then muriatic acid must also contain oxygen ; for 

 when diluted with water, iron is oxidized by their mutual action. 



The properties of Carbonic Acid are treated of next. And here 

 again we have no account of the proportions of its constituents, or of 

 the mode of obtaining it by decomposing a carbonate with an acid. 

 It is indeed true that this method of preparing it is to be found,, 

 where it ought not to be, viz. under the head of Lime ; but even 



tliere 



