August 4, 192 1] 



NATURE 



709 



the original proprietor and director of the well- 

 known Wiesbaden laboratory, have enjoyed an 

 almost unchallenged position in Germany as 

 standard works for more than three-quarters of 

 a century. During that period they have been 

 frequently revised and reprinted. English editions 

 of these works have been published by the 

 firm of J. and A. Churchill at various times, 

 and are, of course, well known in this 

 country and in America, but have never 

 acquired the same popularity as in Ger- 

 many. Manuals of chemical analysis written 

 by English and American authors have been 

 found more suitable for class and laboratory in- 

 struction. Chemical analysis is, of course, an 

 art which can be acquired only by practice, and 

 a book on the subject should be substantially a 

 vade-mecum, which is defined to be anything, 

 especially a book or manual, a person carries with 

 him for daily use. Now this is precisely what 

 the works of Fresenius are not. They have 

 grown so unwieldy that it is impossible to use 

 them as manuals or as the constant companion of 

 the student on the laboratory bench. They are 

 to be regarded rather as works of reference to 

 be consulted in the college library, in which the 

 learner may hope to find an account, more or less 

 detailed, of everything connected with the subject, 

 arranged systematically, and with bibliographical 

 references to the original sources of information. 

 Mr. Mitchell's book is a translation of the 

 seventeenth edition of the original work brought 

 up to date and made to conform with modern 

 conceptions by Dr. Th. Wilhelm Fresenius. In 

 its English dress it is a portly octavo volume of 

 nearly looo pages, and is, in effect, a text-book 

 on general chemistry with special reference to 

 qualitative analysis. Presumably, in its present 

 form, it is primarily intended to supplement the 

 course of lectures given in the Wiesbaden school. 

 It has been translated into English with meticu- 

 lous care, and so preserves certain blemishes 

 which are characteristic of the original. Prac- 

 tically all the bibliographical references are to 

 German periodicals, and largely to Fresenius 's 

 Zeitschrift fiir analytische Chemie. German 

 names, of course, preponderate. English, French, 

 and American chemists have made notable con- 

 tributions to analytical chemistry, but their names 

 are conspicuous by their absence. Mr. Mitchell is 

 the editor of the Analyst, and he must have been 

 struck by the entire omission of any reference to 

 that journal, which now extends to forty-six 

 volumes. Surely in this mass of analytical litera- 

 ture there must be an occasional grain of wheat 

 that might have been allowed to germinate in a 

 NO. 2701, VOL. 107] 



foreign soil. We do not know if the English 

 editor was in any way restricted, but in preparing 

 the translation for English-speaking peoples it 

 was, we think, desirable that he should conform 

 to generally accepted English nomenclature and 

 terminology. When the International Committee 

 on Atomic Weights was created, one of its earliest 

 duties was to unify the nomenclature of the 

 elements. Not only were the atomic weights to 

 be made uniform throughout the various nations 

 which were represented on the Committee, but 

 also the names and symbols of corresponding 

 elements. The general principle suggested was 

 that the original name should be retained. This 

 recommendation, although adopted by the Ameri- 

 can, French, and English representatives, was 

 systematically ignored by their German col- 

 leagues. Glucinum, which was discovered by 

 Vauquelin, was still called beryllium, apparently 

 for no other reason than that Klaproth had so 

 termed it. Columbium was first detected and so 

 named by Hatchett in 1801, but this element is 

 invariably called niobium by the Germans, because 

 Rose in 1844 had inferred the presence of a new 

 element, which he had thus named, in the colum- 

 bites of Bodenmais. It was afterwards found 

 that Rose's supposed new element had no exist- 

 ence ; but, as the name " niobium " had been in- 

 troduced into German chemical literature, it was 

 applied to "Hatchett 's columbium, discovered more 

 than forty years previously. We think, there- 

 fore, in the light of these facts, Mr. Mitchell 

 would have been well advised to conform to 

 English, French, and American procedure. 



The book is free from typographical errors, 

 and has evidently been carefully read. There 

 are, however, a few errata which are duly noted ; 

 but that the atomic weight of titanium should be 

 48-1 instead of 40- 1 (p. 197) is not one of them. 



(2) Messrs. Hood and Carpenter's "Text-book 

 of Practical Chemistry " is claimed by its authors 

 to be "a whole-hearted attempt ... to indicate 

 the best methods of doing everything." What- 

 ever may be thought of the claim, the book, in 

 plan and execution, is in striking contrast with 

 that just noticed. Whereas that work is speci- 

 ally, and almost exclusively, directed to the sub- 

 ject of qualitative analysis, the present authors 

 seek to cover the whole domain of practical chem- 

 istry — inorganic and organic preparations, in- 

 organic and organic qualitative and quantitative 

 analysis by gravimetric, electrolytic, and volu- 

 metric methods, including gas analysis — within 

 the compass of half the number of pages to which 

 the work of Fresenius extends. 



Although the book and its arrangement are, 



