August 2 2, 1889] 



NATURE 



;89 



medium-size flowers, at first of a greenish colour streaked 

 or blotched with purple, and finally of a dull red, with 

 very small, almost black petals. The tube of the calyx 

 is very much constricted immediately above the ovary, 

 and there is a second constriction a little higher up. 

 Moreover, the flowers are trimorphic in the relative 

 lengths of the style and stamens. That this Fuchsia 

 yields " one of the strongest and most durable timbers in 

 the colony" will be news to most people. But, as the 

 trunk is often crooked or gnarled, it is difficult to procure 

 logs exceeding 8 or 9 feet in length, and its commercial 

 value is therefore greatly diminished. Mr. Kirk says the 

 wood is hard, dense, compact, and even, and deep brown 

 in colour, relieved by streaks of a paler shade, and short 

 narrow waved black markings. When much waved, it is 

 of a highly ornamental character. Further, it is almost 

 indestructible even by fire, except in a closed furnace. 



Many more interesting facts might be extracted from 

 this admirable book, the botany of which appears to be 

 equally as good as the practical part. A few new species 

 are described, and the female flower of Podocarpus totara 

 and the male catkin of Dacrydium cupressinum are figured 

 and described for the first time. 



One more point deserves mentioning. Mr. Kirk is very 

 much concerned about the many inappropriate popular 

 colonial names, which he proposes to reform ; but we 1 

 think he has undertaken a task in which he must inevit- 

 ably fail. From the time of the earliest settlements, the 

 various species of native beech {Fagus) have been called 

 red birch, white birch, &c., though not uniformly through- 

 out the colony ; and the Maori language has only one 

 common name for all the species. Now, Mr. Kirk pro- 

 poses calling them " entire leaved beech," " tooth-ICfived 

 beech," and so on. Supposing it were possible to effect a 

 reform in this direction, the substitution of such uncouth 

 names as those proposed is less to be desired than 

 the retention of their present botanically inaccurate 

 appellations. W. BOTTING Hemsley. 



AN ELEMENTARY TEXT-BOOK OF 

 CHEMISTRY. 

 An Elementary Text-book of Chemistry. By William 

 G. Mixter. Second and Revised Edition. (London : 

 Macmillan and Co., 1889.) 



THIS volume belongs to the well-known series of 

 " Manuals for Students," and will pleasantly surprise 

 those who imagine that the multitude of elementary text- 

 books of chemistry has made originality impossible. Cf 

 those smaller matters that readers and students generally 

 accept with no more thought than their daily mercies, 

 the index deserves especial mention as being exceptionally 

 inclusive, and bearing evident signs of having been com- 

 piled by someone who had a sufficient knowledge of the 

 subject to go beyond the mere verbiage, and enough 

 patience to carry the task through. 



Looking at the book simply as a treatise on chemistry, 

 the adoption of the periodic system as a method of 

 classification is very desirable, but the difficulty as to 

 which of its elements a compound shall be associated 

 with is not easily settled. The tendency is doubtless 

 to keep the compounds of any one metal together, 

 and this is what the author has done as far as pos- 



sible, but as, for example, nine metals are treated of 

 before oxygen and sulphur, and thirty-eight metals before 

 carbon, the compounds of those metals that are con- 

 sidered in the earlier pages are spread through the book 

 in a manner that is doubly confusing, the interpolated 

 sections seriously interfering with the general arrange- 

 ment. The sulphates of sodium, for instance, cannot be 

 considered with sodium itself before sulphur has been 

 mentioned, nor can they be added to sulphuric acid, as 

 that would disturb the natural sequence of sulphur, 

 selenium, and tellurium compounds, and the best place 

 remaining for them is in the middle of one of the groups 

 of elements. As a natural result of this apparently un- 

 avoidable irregularity, such a common salt as manganese 

 sulphate finds no place at all, and it cannot be supposed 

 that it is intentionally omitted when manganese tetra- 

 fluoride, hydrogen auryl sulphate, gold sulphate, and other 

 equally rare compounds have considerable- space allotted 

 to them. 



There is another marked innovation that certainly 

 deserves success — namely, the introduction of gravimetri- 

 cal quantitative experiments. The very first experiment 

 in the division of the book headed " Chemistry " is the 

 preparation of hydrogen by the action of sodium upon 

 water, and the student is directed, after weighing the 

 sodium and measuring the gas, to calculate the relative 

 weights of the two, making all due corrections. In 

 the next experiment the proportion between the weights 

 of equivalent amounts of zinc and hydrogen is deter- 

 mined. 



If the volume before us were simply an experiment in 

 text-books, we might leave off here by congratulating the 

 author on the measure of success that he has realized ; 

 but his first words in the preface are, " This work is 

 designed for use in schools and colleges." The tendency 

 at the present time is not merely to introduce the study 

 of chemistry, but to extend the general scope of educa- 

 tion in many other ways, so that the time devoted to 

 chemistry has been very much reduced in some cases to 

 allow of the addition of other subjects to the student's 

 carriculum. It would be difficult to find a student who 

 would have time to work through 238 experiments in 

 elementary chemistry, especially when many of them 

 are in reality a combination of three or four ; and besides 

 the specific experiments enumerated there are sugges- 

 tions in the text that the student should prepare certain 

 compounds and verify their properties. We do not 

 hesitate to say that the intelligent performance of a fifth 

 of the number of experiments set down to be done, accom- 

 panied with suitable study, would give the student as 

 serviceable a knowledge of the subject as if he went 

 through the mass of practical work prescribed. 



The author also says in his preface that " Graphic and 

 constitutional formulas are much used,"' and the body of 

 the book fully bears out the statement. Graphic formulas 

 have been perseveringly tried in this country as an aid 

 to the elementary student of inorganic chemistry, and 

 have been deliberately discarded as uselessly cumbrous, 

 and as making what is difficult to the beginner more 

 difficult still. Such formulas, however, are occasionally 

 useful ; but we would ask what good end is served by 

 setting down the graphic formula of Na.,W;,On, which is 

 given at p. 190? The best formula is that which most 



