sessed by the gentleman to whom we are indebted for this 
volume; and that they have been exercised with candor and 
impartiality, we find abundant evidence. 
The basis of Dr. Webster’s Manual is stated to be the work 
of Prof. Brande. The latter is an exceedingly valuable 
work, the general arrangement of which is not less convenient 
than philosophical ; but in this respect some improvement bas 
been made in the volume under notice. A very considerable 
part of Brande’s work is occupied with tables of the strength 
of acids, of equivalent numbers, &c. and a still larger part by 
the chapters on mineralogy. Webster has very judicious- 
ly omitted these parts, and has retained all the strictly chemi- 
eal part. He has not, however, simply republished Mr. 
Brande’s text, but has altered it where the progress of chem- 
istry has rendered it necessary, and has extended nearly all 
the descriptions of the various substances, especially the salts, 
on which Mr. Brande is much too concise ; often giving lit- 
tle more than a catalogue of them. 
There is another great deficiency, not only in Mr. Brande’s 
work, but in almost all the chemical books : we allude to the 
paucity of the experiments. The principles of the science 
cannot be too fully illustrated by appeal to actual experiment 
and it is almost an unnecessary remark, that nothing engages 
and rivets the attention of students to the subject, so strongly 
as the evidence addressed to the eye. This defect is not found 
in Dr. Webster’s work. It abounds with experiments, which 
are in many cases original, and introduced with great judg- 
ment. Most of them are of such a nature, and so fully de- 
scribed, together with the necessary apparatus, that any one 
may perform them by himself. e plates are very numer- 
ous, and executed with great neatness. The volume, although 
containing but 600 pages, comprises as much matter as is 
usually made to occupy twice the : f 
unusually large size, and at the sa 
and fair type. 
We eet that Dr. Webster will pursue she plan he has pro- 
sed in his preface, of publishing a vo : 
the present a to contain the various chemical parte - 
modes of analysis. This will be ~~ convenient in ¢ 
boratory, and as a book oe aed ee 
Pt tg goer at the U.S. Military Academy, West-Poist. 
