NATURE 



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THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 1874 



THE CHEMICAL SOCIETY'S JOURNAL 



"T^HE man who jokingly said that he had to give up the 

 -=• study of chemistry when the science became so 

 bulky that its Handbook required a wheelbarrow for its 

 conveyance, expressed a truth which has been painfully 

 felt by many scientific workers. With continual fresh 

 additions to our knowledge, anything like a compre- 

 hensive grasp of a large science must become daily more 

 and more difficult ; but while this difficulty is generally 

 felt, it occurs with special force in the science of chemis- 

 try. Chemistry, of all sciences, has perhaps the most 

 unlimited capacity for development. Its subject is enor- 

 . mous, including the whole of nature, animate as well as 

 inanimate. Nor is the chemist satisfied with studying the 

 properties of matter as they are exhibited in the natural 

 operations of the world around us, even this wide and 

 attractive field of observation does not content him ; he 

 has made the grand discovery that the elements are his 

 servants ; that he can at will take to pieces in his labora- 

 tory the compounds found in nature, and construct there- 

 from a multitude of new bodies. Chemistry may thus be 

 said to produce the matter upon which it feeds ; the 

 extent to which the production of new compounds can be 

 carried seems practically unlimited, and these become, 

 in most cases, the starting points of fresh investigations. 

 We have here the principal cause of the wonderful deve- 

 lopment of modern chemistry ; armed with such power, it 

 cannot but abound in valuable discoveries, and furnish, 

 at all times, copious results. As a consequence of this 

 rapid development of the science, it has become a matter 

 1 of the greatest difficulty for the investigator, the teacher, 

 or the manufacturer, to keep pace with the daily progress 

 of discovery ; and improvement, and ignorance of the 

 results already obtained in any department, naturally 

 necessitates a loss of valuable time and labour to those 

 I engaged on the subject. The bulk and variety of chemi- 

 cal literature are not, however, the only obstacles to the 

 1 student ; the difficulty is greatly increased to an English- 

 I man by the fact that the greater part of this literature is 

 ] published on the Continent, and appears in a variety of 

 languages with which the average Englishman has but little 

 I acquaintance. 



r With such difficulties to encounter, the individual 

 I student has certainly little prospect of successfully keep- 

 j ing abreast with modern chemistry. We are therefore 

 exceedingly glad to find that the matter has been taken 

 I up by the Chemical Society of London, and that they now 

 1 pubhsh in their monthly journal * carefuUy^prepared ab- 

 I stracts of all the original papers which appear in foreign 

 j and English periodicals. The abstracts are classified for 

 . facility of reference, and arc divided into Physical, Inor- 

 ganic, Mineralogical, Organic, Physiological, Agricultural, 

 \ Analytical, and Technical Chemistry ; it is, therefore, 

 I quite easy to ascertain what has been recently done in 

 I any department of the science. When we mention that 

 j the volume for last year consists of 1,300 pages, and con- 

 i tains, besides the papers and lectures read before the 



( * "The Journal of the Chemical Society," containing the papers read 



.' before the Society, and Abstracts of Chemical Papers published in other 

 [ Journals. Edited by H. Watts, F.R.S. (J. Van Voorst. 1873.) 



I Vol. IX. — No. 229 



Society, about 1,500 abstracts of chemical papers pub- 

 lished in other journals, we shall give some idea of the 

 magnitude of the work which the Society has under- 

 taken. 



Looking carefully through the journal we find that 

 nearly 40 periodicals are regularly abstracted ; and as 

 many of these periodicals reprint papers from other less 

 known publications, the extent of literature brought under 

 contribution is very considerable. The periodicals ab- 

 stracted are German, French, Italian, American, and 

 English, the first two preponderating. The preparation 

 of the abstracts is of course laborious, and demands 

 considerable care. It is accomplished by a body of 

 twenty-six abstractors, chiefly Fellows of the Society, 

 whose initials are appended to their respective work. 

 We are bound to say that the abstracting so far as we 

 have had an opportunity of judging, is exceedingly well 

 done. 



A work of this kind is far too expensive to be perma- 

 nently carried on by a Society destitute of endowment, 

 unless the scientific public in our own and other countries 

 cordially support the enterprise. We understand that 

 the sale of the journal outside the circle of the Society is 

 at present very small, and that the expenses of publica- 

 tion are largely borne by a guaranteed fund raised to 

 give the journal a fair start, and also by a grant from the 

 British Association. We feel sure that the enterprise 

 needs only to be widely known to obtain the support of aU 

 lovers of Science. What the Chemical Society is now doing 

 is indeed exactly what we most need in the present day to 

 assist the multitude of workers who are employing scientific 

 facts and methods. It is a kind of work which must 

 sooner or later be carried further, and extended to all the 

 principal sciences, if ourselves and successors are to cope 

 with the ever-increasing accumulation of facts. While 

 such abstracts are, from their early intelhgence and their 

 widely gathered and condensed information, an unspeak- 

 able boon even to the independent and educated philo- 

 sopher, they are of still greater value to the ordinary 

 worker, who has not the advantages of a large and costly 

 library, or of an education embracing many languages ; 

 to him these abstracts, obtainable at moderate cost in his 

 own language, supply as far as possible the absence of 

 fuller means of information. The work which the 

 Chemical Society has taken up receives, therefore, on 

 many grounds our warmest sympathy. It would indeed 

 be a disgrace to the intellect of our country if such a 

 genuine effort were allowed to drop for lack of support- 

 We would especially invite the attention of our American 

 readers to this monthly journal ; supplying, as it does, in 

 their own language a summary of the chemical literature 

 of Europe, we should think it would exactly meet their 

 wants. The Germans have long had a yearly volume of 

 abstracts treating of chemistry and its allied sciences ; up to 

 the commencement of the present publication the German 

 'Jahresbcriclitfiir Cheinie was indeed the only available work 

 giving a summary of recent investigations. This annual 

 periodical has lately fallen so behind in date (the volumes 

 for 1870 were only obtainable in the middle of last year), 

 that it hai really become a chronicle of the past, rather 

 than of the present state of science, and can hardly com- 

 pare with the new English work. The subscribers to the 

 " Journal of the Chemical Society " possess indeed at the 



