April 22, 1922] 



NATURE 



505 



Some Chemical Treatises. 



t) Fundamental Principles of Organic Chemistry. By- 

 Prof. C. IVfoureu. Authorised Translation from the 

 Sixth French Edition by W. T. K. Braunholtz. 

 Pp. xviii+399. (London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., 

 192 1.) 125. 6d. net. 



(2) A Text-book of Inorganic Chemistry. Edited by 

 Dr. J. N. Friend. Vol. 9, part 2, Iron and its Com- 

 pounds. By Dr. J. N. Friend. (Griffin's Scientific 

 Text-books.) Pp. xxv + 265. (London : Charles 

 Griffin and Co., Ltd., 1921.) 185. 



(3) A Dictionary of Chemical Solubilities. Inorganic. 

 First edition by Dr. A. M. Comey. Second edition, 

 enlarged and revised, by Dr. A. M. Comey and Prof. 

 Dorothy A. Hahn. Pp. xviii + 1141. (New York: 

 The Macmillan Company ; London : Macmillan and 

 Co., Ltd., 1921.) 725. net. 



(i) " I ^HE wealth of material comprehended by 

 X organic chemistry constitutes a very real 

 and formidable difficulty to the instructor in that 

 branch of science. It is calculated that up to the 

 present time more than two hundred thousand organic 

 substances have been discovered and described, and the 

 number is being steadily added to week after week. 

 It is obviously impossible for any lecturer on the subject 

 to deal with more than a very small fraction of this 

 materia chemica. Nor is there any reason why he 

 should. Fifty or sixty years ago organic chemistry was 

 scarcely taught in our universities, and, even when 



I taught, was treated in a lifeless, unsystematic manner. 



I Students, far from being attracted towards it, were 



* frankly bored by the uninteresting recapitulation of 

 empirical facts, methods of preparation, and physical 



i properties, which usually made up the substance of 

 the teacher's prelections. All this, however, is now 

 changed. The enormous accretion of fact has been 

 brought under law and order. The whole has been 

 collated, and, for the most part, reduced to fundamental 

 principles. The view of the village is no longer ob- 

 scured by the houses. 



It is with those fundamental principles alone, based 

 upon the co-ordination of facts, or groups of facts, that 

 the teacher of organic chemistry to-day can concern 



( himself, if he would seek to convey any adequate con- 

 ■ception of the field of study occupied by that depart- 

 ment of science. In the hands of a capable, well- 

 informed man, gifted with philosophic insight and 

 endowed with the faculty of exposition, tuition ip 

 organic chemistry can be made a most fascinating 

 occupation. To supplement the teacher's work in the 



. lecture-room, however, the students should be provided 



y with a well-ordered text-book, dealing with the prin- 

 NO. 2738, VOL. 109] 



ciples concerned. Such a book is that under review. 

 In its original form it has already been noticed in these 

 columns. Since that time it has gone through many 

 editions, and has found its way beyond French univer- 

 sity circles. The sixth French edition has now been 

 translated into English by Mr. Walter T. K. Braunholtz, 

 and appears with an introduction from Prof. Sir William 

 J. Pope, of the University of Cambridge. 



We heartily commend Prof. Moureu's book to all — 

 both teachers and taught — to whom the philosophic 

 aspects of organic chemistry appeal. No more interest- 

 ing work on the subject has appeared within recent 

 years. It is written with that clarity, logical sense, 

 faculty of arrangement, and sense of proportion which 

 are such striking characteristics of French scientific 

 Uterature. We trust that in its English dress it will 

 .have a reception commensurate with its great merits. 



(2) As was mentioned in a former notice in Nature 

 of vol. 9 of Dr. Newton Friend's great work on in- 

 organic chemistry, it has been found necessary to treat 

 the subject of iron in a separate part of that volume, on 

 account of the great importance of the metal and the 

 voluminous literature which has grown round it. This 

 has been found so great that it has been deemed desir- 

 able to subdivide the volume still further. The part 

 now under review treats of the chemistry of iron and 

 its compounds, its metallurgy being relegated to part 3, 

 which is being dealt with by the editor in collaboration 

 with Mr. W. H. Hatfield. 



The general plan of part 2 is similar to that of the 

 preceding volumes. It opens with an account of the 

 early history of iron as a metal, beginning with the use 

 of meteoric iron by prehistoric man, and of smelted 

 iron by the Egyptians, Ethiopians, Assyrians, and 

 Israelites. According to authorities quoted by Dr. 

 Friend, India acquired her knowledge of iron from 

 Babylon. The famous pillar at Delhi is far from being 

 so old as is usually surmised. It dates back probably 

 to about A.D. 300. Greece was the first country in 

 Europe to use iron — probably about 1400 B.C. It was 

 known in Britain about a century before the Roman 

 invasion, when, as mentioned by Caesar, it was used in 

 the form of bars for currency. Specimens of these bars 

 are in the British Museum and in the Worcester 

 Museum. Chap. 2 is concerned with the mineralogy of 

 iron, and gives an account of its ores and other ferru- 

 ginous minerals, many of which, of course, are of no 

 importance as sources of the metal. It is noteworthy 

 that the mean percentages of ferrous and ferric oxides 

 contained in American igneous rocks are considerably 

 less than in similar British rocks. Chap. 3 treats of 

 the preparation and properties of pure iron, the pass- 

 ivity of iron, its action as a catalyst, etc. A short 

 section on its atomic weight is contributed by Mr. 



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