Notices respecting New Books. 67 



placed in the hands of an intelligent workman, when the constrnction 

 of any complicated apparatus is required. 



The book opens with a chapter on the arrangement of an experi- 

 mental laboratory, full of information, most valuable not only to those 

 who have to improvise their work-room in a dwelling-house or other 

 previously-erected building, but also to the more fortunate chemist 

 who can build a laboratory specially adapted to the purposes of che- 

 mical research. Then follow chapters on furnaces, lamps, blowpipe 

 apparatus, baths, heat-measurers, the balance, specific gravity, solu- 

 tion, precipitation, &c., — all containing in a condensed form much 

 useful matter which could only otherwise be found scattered over 

 the pages of numerous bulky volumes. 



A very important feature in the ' Handbook' is the devotion of con- 

 siderable space to the description of certain classes of operations 

 emploji^ed in chemical research. The prosecution of investigations, 

 especially in the organic department of the science, has of late 

 years developed certain experimental methods, which from their 

 convenience and wide application have become of paramount import- 

 ance to the investigator. In this branch of his subject Mr. Williams 

 has given excellent chapters on "Volumetric manipulation," " Gas 

 manipulation," and " Pressure-tube operations." Under the first- 

 named title, the manipulatory methods necessary to the performance 

 of the volumetrical operations devised by Riohr, Bunsfen, Liebig and 

 others are described ; whilst the chapter on gas manipulation con- 

 tains descriptions of the apparatus employed in gaseous research by 

 Bunsen, Regnault and Frankland. This chapter is full of most use- 

 ful information respecting a department of chemical inquiry which is 

 daily becoming more important : we could have wished, however, 

 that the author had devoted more space to the description of the 

 methods of the lirst-named chemist, to whom this branch of mani- 

 pulation is so deeply indebted, and whose processes, from the sim- 

 plicity of the apparatus required, and the ease with which the ex- 

 perimenter may construct it for himself, are more likely to be em- 

 ployed by the student than the more expensive instruments of Reg- 

 nault and Frankland, which, although aiFording considerable advan- 

 tages to the exi)erienced operator, are not so well adapted for the be- 

 ginner in gas manipulations. 



In the chapter on pressure-tube operations we conceive that the 

 author has slightly erred in the opposite direction. He has clearly 

 and fully described all the simpler forms of apparatus used in these 

 important operations, but he has altogether omitted to mention the 

 more convenient though expensive contrivances, which have recently 

 come Into use among those chemists who have extensively employed 

 these processes in their researches. 



With these slight defects, to which we only direct attention in 

 order that they may be remedied in a future edition, we most coi-- 

 dially recommend the book as an invaluable companion In the labo- 

 ratory. 



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