August 8, 1901] 



NA TURE 



349 



Coleoptera. A certain amount of discretion as to what 

 to include and what to omit, as well as in the selection of 

 synonyms, must be conceded to every cataloguer. A few 

 misprints are corrected at the end of the book, and we 

 have noticed others ; but they are not of a character to 

 interfere in any way with the usefulness of the book, and 

 an occasional misprint is absolutely unavoidable in a 

 work of such an extent, and including such a vast amount 

 of minute detail. W. F. K. 



AN EPITOME OF MODERN CHEMISTR\ . 

 Modern Chemistry. Part i. Theoretical Chemistry. Pp. 

 126 ; Part ii. Systematic Chemistry. Pp. 203. By 

 William Ramsay, D.Sc. The Temple Primers. 

 (London : J. M. Dent and Co., 1900.) Price \s. each. 



GI\'ERS of ine.Kpensive Christmas remembrances- 

 something more than a card and less than a present 

 — have made us very familiar with the small volumes of 

 the Temple series, and at a first glance the title pages 

 of the two books before us seem to promise selections from 

 Epictetus or De Quincey rather than an exposition of 

 modern chemistry by a living authority. In the first of 

 the volumes Prof. Ramsay has given an extremely con- 

 densed account of the present state of chemical theory, 

 and in the second an equally condensed account of 

 systematic chemistry. Both books bear the marks of 

 freshness and originality, and, it must be added, both 

 produce a certain feeling of breathlessness. They are 

 eminently readable to a chemist, and extremely interest- 

 ing as displaying a sort of camera obscura picture of the 

 territory of chemistry as it is presented in the mind of 

 one of the most active, most unconservative and most 

 distinguished of contemporary workers. 



The question that forces itself most persistently upon 

 a critic is — for what class of readers are these books in- 

 tended ? They are called primers, and the present writer, 

 wishing to fortify his opinion that a primer was essen- 

 tially a book for beginners, has found, on reference to a 

 dictionary, that a primer is " a small elementary book for 

 religious instruction or for teaching children to read." 

 He has, further, taken the trouble to put one of these 

 primers into the hands, not of a child, but of a friend of 

 more mature years and not wholly strange to scientific 

 notions, with the request that he would see what he could 

 make of it. The answer came quickly and in unmis- 

 takable terms. The word primer has really no justifica- 

 tion in connection with these books ; they are in no wise 

 suited to beginners. To those who are working in one 

 little corner of chemistry with their eyes averted from all 

 that is going on elsewhere, and to workers in other 

 sciences who at one time have known a fair amount of 

 chemistry, Prof. Ramsay's survey may be just what they 

 have been wanting. Considering the limits of space im- 

 posed, he has given a wonderfully complete and connected 

 account of the state of modern chemistry. The book on 

 theoretical chemistry is naturally the more readable of 

 the two, and it forms a more continuous story. The 

 systematic chemistry exhibits and classifies the facts of 

 chemistry in a way which is striking and interesting and 

 well suited for retrospective purposes. Stress must be 

 laid upon this last qualification, for it is to be feared that 

 a reader who had not already a very good grounding of 

 NO. 1658, VOL. 64J 



chemistry would be unable to make any headway in the 

 subject if he started along the lines on which Prof. 

 Ramsay has achieved his formidable task. 



To those who wish to refresh their knowledge of 

 chemistry or to look at it from a new point of view, and 

 to those who wish to gain some idea of the very im- 

 portant changes which have been afifecting the whole 

 science during the past fifteen years. Prof. Ramsay's little 

 book may be warmly recommended. Such readers will 

 carry away some knowledge at least of " phases," electro 

 affinity, the later developments of stereochemistry 

 and many other innovations ; and they will see, with 

 mixed feelings perhaps, how the modern electrochemical 

 theory is changing the whole language of the science. 



A. S. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 

 Essays, Descriptive and Biographical. By Grace, Lady 



Prestwich. With a memoir by her sister, Louisa E. 



Milne. Pp. 266. (Edinburgh and London : Willian> 



Blackwood and Sons, 1901.) Price \os. bd. 

 L.'^DY Prestwich, who survived her husband, Sir Joseph 

 Prestwich, but little more than three years, died in 1899 

 at the age of sixty-six. They were married in 1870, and 

 settled at Shoreham, near Sevenoaks, in the charming 

 house of Darent-Hulme, built by Prestwich. While he 

 was professor of geology! at Oxford, many months ii> 

 each year were spent in that ancient home of learning, 

 and there Prestwich was constantly assisted by his wife 

 in the preparation, not only of his standard work or> 

 geology, but also of his lectures, diagrams and geological 

 papers. Herself an authoress, she had exhibited con- 

 siderable literary ability in her two novels, "The Harbour 

 Bar " and " Enga," and in a number of essays printed in 

 Good Words, Blackiuoods Magasine, the Leisure Hour, 

 &c. Some of these are here reprinted. There are 

 " Recollections of Boucher de Perthes," being the history 

 of the discovery of PaLi;olithic implements ; "Evenings 

 with Madame Mohl," or reminiscences of a Paris salon ; 

 "An Evening with Mrs. Somerville"; some account of 

 the parallel roads of Glen Roy, and essays on physio- 

 graphy, all pleasantly and instructively written. One 

 article not previously published is on the old almshouse 

 of Ewelme, and another is on the Findhorn, especially 

 attractive to Lady Prestwich, as her earliest home was in 

 Morayshire, on the banks of this, perhaps the grandest 

 of Scottish rivers. 



In the memoir, which has been attractively written by 

 Miss Louisa Milne, we have the record of the life of a 

 good and highly cultured woman, a life comparatively 

 uneventful, it is true, but the record will be found full of 

 interest to those who had the privilege of knowing Lady 

 Prestwich, while others who peruse this volume will 

 derive instruction, always pleasantly conveyed, and make 

 acquaintance with a charming personality. Amid her 

 many occupations. Lady Prestwich found time for much 

 active benevolence and for work relating to the higher 

 education and employment of women. In her younger 

 days she travelled much with her uncle. Dr. Hugh 

 Falconer, and reminiscences of these journeys are ex- 

 tracted from her diary. An interesting essay on "our 

 white deal box " tells the story of the trouble they had in 

 passing this box through the custom-house at Naples, as 

 it contained mysterious plaster casts of the head and 

 bones of a rhinoceros. Even the letters F.R.S. after 

 Falconer's name puzzled the ofificials. " Royal Society 

 sounded well, but how was the word Fellow to be rendered 

 in French or Italian ? I had to be careful, since it could 

 be interpreted in more than one sense. .\ little heedless- 

 ness on my part might bring on my uncle the same 



