60 Analyses of Books. [July, 



forfeit of human depravity, maybe supposed to have touched his 

 heart. 



Under the impression of these paternal feelings, to obliterate 

 every trace of the dreadful scourge, remove every remnant of 

 the frightful havoc, seem the natural effects of his benevolence 

 and power. As a lesson to the races which were to issue from 

 the loins of the few who had been spared, — races which were to 

 be wicked indeed as those which had preceded them, but which 

 were promised exemption from a like punishment, to have pre- 

 served any memento of them would have been useless. 



To a miracle then which swept away all that could recall that 

 day of death when "the windows of heaven were opened" upon 

 mankind, must we refer what no natural means are adecpiate to 

 explain. 



Article XII. 



Analyses of Books. 



Ah Epitome of Chemistry, wherein the Principles of the Science 

 are illustrated in 100 Entertaining and Instructive Experi- 

 ments, 8>c. &)C. By the Rev. John Topham, MA. (of St. John's 

 College, Cambridge) Head Master of Bromsgrove Grammar 

 School, Worcestershire. Second Edition. 24mo. pp. 134. 



Contrary to the expectations we had formed when we first 

 saw this publication, it has (according to the title page at least) 

 reached a second edition ; we consider it, therefore, proper to 

 exhibit its true nature to the public, and to warn them of the 

 numerous errors which it contains :— errors greater in number 

 and importance than in any work of the same size that ever 

 appeared on the subject of which it treats. 



We shall not pretend to go minutely through the book ; a few 

 passages, taken almost at random, will be sufficient to show the 

 nature of the work, and that the author, without intending to be 

 original, is so greatly in error, that he does not possess even the 

 slender requisites for a copyist. 



With respect, first, to chemical action, it is stated, in p. 4,that 

 " chemical action will not take place between two bodies, except 

 one of them be in a fluid state, or at least contain water." Now 

 this is not the fact ; numerous examples might be given of the 

 contrary, but one will suffice, viz. the mutual action of lime and 

 muriate of ammonia. In p. 5, it is asserted that " if two bodies, 

 x and ?/, unite in the proportion of 4 to 6, then these numbers 

 express the weight of their atoms." This again is an error; 

 oxygen and phosphorus unite in the proportion of 4 to 6, but 

 these numbers do not express the weights of their atoms ; they 

 only show that phosphorus combines with two-thirds of its 



