February 9, 1905J 



NATURE 



339 



Nancy, gives the results of some experiments made 

 on the density of sea water in the course of an 

 inquiry entrusted to him by the commission in con- 

 nection with the results derived by M. Arctowski. 



\V. E. P. 



IT A LI A N CHEMIST R Y. 

 Trattato di Chimica Inorganica Generale e AppUcato 

 all' Industria. By Dr. E. Molinari. Pp. xxii + 693. 

 (Milan : Ulrico Hoepli, 1905.) Price 12.50 lire. 



DURING the greater part of last century the prcv- 

 gress of science in Italy was retarded by the 

 political troubles of the country; even after the nation 

 had achieved its independence and unit)-, scientific 

 education was hampered by ecclesiastical controversies 

 and by the poverty of the newh' created Government. 

 Taxation has always fallen heavily on the Italian 

 people, and the industry and energy of the north 

 have been taxed unduly owing to the poverty and 

 thriftlessness of the south. In spite of these dis- 

 advantages, Italy gave to science in the last century 

 many names which will long be remembered in its 

 history. In particular, the hypothesis of Count 

 -Avogadro, enunciated in 181 1, forms the basis of the 

 whole of the modern development of chemistry ; for 

 nearly fifty years, however, its importance was over- 

 looked, and it was the peculiar merit of another 

 Italian, Cannizzaro, by reviving it, to establish a new 

 epoch in the development of chemical science and to 

 introduce order where all was confused and contra- 

 dictory. 



In the course of the past twenty-five years a school 

 of Italian chemists has arisen the quality of whose 

 work is on a high level of excellence. Side by side 

 with this, an astonishingly rapid development of all 

 branches of the industry of Italy has occurred. The 

 rapidity of the advance may be gauged from a few 

 facts. In the six years 1893-9, the value of the 

 chemical manufactures of Italy exactly doubled itself, 

 increasing from about i,ooo,oooi. to 2,ooo,oooi. per 

 annum. In the twenty-five years from 1875 to 1900 

 the value of the raw silk annually produced tripled 

 itself, and that of the woven silk, which in 1890 was 

 600,000!., rose in 1900 to 4,000,000!. The cotton and 

 wool industries have developed almost as rapidly, and 

 a similar progress is seen in the case of new manu- 

 factures, such as that of steel rails, which have only 

 recently been introduced into the country. In some 

 instances Italian manufacturers have begun to com- 

 pete in foreign markets, and this development bids 

 fair to become still more rapid as Italy converts more 

 and more of her abundant store of water power into 

 electrical energy. 



The author of the present treatise, who holds the 

 position of professor of chemistry at the Society for 

 the Encouragement of Arts and Crafts of Milan, has 

 endeavoured in it to initiate a reform in the teach- 

 ing of chemistry in Italian universities, a reform 

 which has also been recently urged by Profs. Canniz- 

 zaro and Ciamician. Hitherto the chemistry taught 

 has been of too academical a character, little attention 

 being given to practical applications. The title of 

 NO. 184I, VOL. 71] 



the present work defines its nature, which is that of 

 a treatise on inorganic chemistry, with especial refer- 

 ence to chemical industry. The commoner elements 

 and their compounds are dealt with in detail, but 

 instead of illustrating the text with time-honoured 

 drawings of lecture apparatus, the actual plant used 

 in the manufacture of tliese substances is depicted. 

 All the more recent processes of manufacture are 

 described concisely but sufficiently, but the book does 

 not degenerate into a mere treatise of technology. 

 The principal physical and chemical properties of the 

 substances are clearly defined, as well as the relation 

 existing between them; owing to conciseness and to 

 the character of the type employed, a large amount 

 of information is imparted vhich is not to be found 

 in the usual elementary text-books. A novel feature 

 is that the average market price, of each commercial 

 article is stated, whilst statistics .ire given of the cost 

 of manufacture and profit of many of the more im- 

 portant substances. In many cases the development 

 of an industry is traced through the patents referring 

 to it, for instance, in the case of the manufacture of 

 sulphuric acid and of alkali. 



Before undertaking the syste^natic treatment of the 

 elements, 114 pages are devoted to general chemical 

 theory. It is this part that is most liable to 

 criticism. A portion might very profitably have been 

 omitted. The description, for instance, on pp. 37 to 

 40, of as many as eight different methods of deter- 

 mining vapour density, serves no useful purpose in 

 a book of this kind, while it is doubtful whether the 

 method of deducing the relationship (pp. 72 to 73) 

 between the osmotic pressure and the freezing and 

 boiling points of dilute solutions will be intelligible 

 to the student in its present form. The historical 

 treatment adopted throughout the work is the cause 

 of a few misstatements which should have been 

 avoided. Why, for instance, revive the story, which 

 has no basis in fact, that Priestley, after languish- 

 ing in poverty, died of poison? In discussing the 

 history of valency, no mention is made of Frankland 

 and Kolbe, Wurtz and Graham only being referred 

 to. It is, moreover, so far from being the truth 

 (p. 136) that in 1809 Gay-Lussac and Th^nard 

 admitted that chlorine was probably an element that 

 even in 181 1 they contested Davy's view of its 

 elementary nature. Strangely enough, the part played 

 by Cannizzaro in reviving Avogadro's theory is passed 

 over in silence (p. 33), and the credit given to Gerhardt 

 and Laurent alone. 



Dr. Molinari 's treatise is especially adapted and 

 is likely to be very serviceable to the student who 

 intends devoting himself to chemical industry ; for 

 a similar text-book at an equally low price the English 

 student has long sighed in vain. With a few slight 

 alterations the work could be made equally useful to 

 the engineer. In particular, more space might be 

 given to considering materials of construction, whilst 

 the treatment of alloys is far too brief to be satis- 

 factory, considering the important part which they 

 now play in engineering. Several pages of part i. 

 might well be replaced by a general discussion of the 

 remarkable influence of impurities and of thermal 



