276 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



somewhere in Germany, Mr. Shenstone has a message. He wishes them 

 to know who Liebig was, what he did, and why all chemists and all those 

 who are versed in the history of science admire and esteem him so greatly. 

 To this end our author has taken especial pains to set forth Liebig's 

 applications of chemistry to the arts, even at the expense, as he concedes, of 

 doing "something less than justice'' to the great German's labors in pure 

 science. Liebig was the son of a color-maker, who was able to give him a 

 university education, but this was of little benefit to him in becoming a 

 chemist. His private studies, supplemented by admission to Gay-Lussac's 

 private laboratory, prepared him for his profession. Mr. Shenstone enu- 

 merates four great departures in which Liebig took the lead. First, he 

 devised the process now followed in analyzing organic compounds, and 

 with this as an implement he determined the composition and discovered 

 cheaper and safer ways of making many substances important to science 

 and industry. Second, he showed that plants derive their nourishment not 

 so much from the humus as from the inorganic salts in the soil and the 

 carbon dioxide of the air, and went on to formulate rules for the making 

 and application of fertilizers and for the practical conduct of other agri- 

 cultural operations. His third great work was closely connected with this. 

 It related to physiological chemistry, taking up the office of the food of ani- 

 mals in producing tissue, maintaining the animal heat, etc. Liebig's fourth 

 great departure was introducing the laboratory method of teaching chemis- 

 try. This alone would have won him high fame. Mr. Shenstone does not 

 dwell upon Liebig's private life, but gives an insight into his combative 

 but generous character when telling of his collaboration with Wohler and 

 with Dumas, also in the chapter on his later years. Accounts of the 

 work of Faraday, Maxwell, Lyell, Davy, Pasteur, Darwin, and Helmholtz 

 are announced as in preparation, and if they are executed as acceptably 

 as the earlier volumes, this series will be a notably attractive and in- 

 structive one. 



The multiplication of untechnical, familiar books about flowers, whether 

 of the garden, field, or forest, is a good sign. It shows that more and more 

 people are growing interested in the subject, and that those who have not 

 had opportunity to take a course in botany, or whose time, or eyes, or pa- 

 tience are not sufficient to enable them to plod through the mass of minute 

 details involved in the technical identifications of the manuals, want to 

 know what they are and what their relationships. Mr. Mathews, author 

 of Familiar Flowers of Field and Garden* enjoys a point of observa- 

 tion farther north than do most of the others who have given us books of 

 this kind, writing from Campton, N. H., on the edge of the Franconia 

 Mountains. There he has a garden in which most of the western and 

 southwestern wild flowers are cultivated, while the wild flowers of New 

 England grow in the fields and woods around. With these he spends much 

 time ; and in this book he attempts to introduce them to the reader by name 

 and familiar description and picture, and to supplement the introduction 

 by a little friendly gossip based on personal experience. These flowers are 

 treated according to the seasons and months in which they appear; while 



* Familiar Flowers of Field and Garden, described and illustrated by F. Schuyler Mathews. 

 Pp 308, 12mo. New York : D. Appleton & Co. Price, $1.75. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner 

 <t Co. 



