REVIEWS ELEMENTS OF INORGANIC CHEMISTRY. 489 



Chemist. In German we have GmeHn's "Handbuch," which will 

 ever remain a memorial of the almost incredible diligence and ability 

 of its author, a work that as one of reference is unsurpassed in any 

 science. The only book which can compare with and perhaps surpass 

 Graham's is the "Lehrbuch der Anorganischen Chemie," by Otto, 

 formerly known as " Otto Graham's Chemie," being founded on the 

 previous edition of that author's elements, but which has now assumed 

 a form and extension fully entitling it to the position of an independ- 

 ent work. Although it is now some years old, having been completed 

 in 1855, it may not be altogether out of place to say a few words 

 concerning this most excellent publication. 



To all lovers of chemistry, and especially to those engaged in the 

 arduous duties of instruction, we cannot sufficiently recommend a per- 

 usal of this specimen of German accuracy and completeness. Perhaps 

 the objection may be raised, and not altogether without reason, that 

 the author has rather too great a tendency to diffusiveness. Imagine 

 seventy-five pages of close print on nitric acid, forty -five on phosphoric, 

 and about the same on sulphuric ; and yet there is little or nothing 

 that we could desire to see left out. So many various branches of 

 chemical science are treated of, and so much attention is paid to 

 analysis and . to technical and toxicological applications, and the first 

 volume of the four, on Heat, Electricity, and Chemical Physics, has 

 been so thoroughly elaborated by Kopp, Zamminer and others, that 

 the work in reality replaces a whole chemical library To the lecturer 

 also it is exceedingly valuable, from the number of excellent hints for 

 the performance of lecture-room experiments. 



The "Elements" of Graham, however, if not quite so extensive as 

 the work of Otto, is undoubtedly the most philosophical and instruc- 

 tive treatise on chemistry, in the English language. We have already 

 noticed the first part, as it appeared in its American dress in 1852, and 

 have only now to add, that the recent edition has been brought up to 

 the present state of the science by the carefully compiled and elabo- 

 rate supplement appended by Mr. H. Watts, the English editor, to 

 whom this second edition owes much of its completeness, and who 

 must share with Graham the commendations awarded to it. 



The supplement is very extensive, occupying nearly two hundred 

 pages, and commences with an excellent resume of the advances made 

 in Heat, Electricity, and Chemical Physics, e. g. Specific Heat, Vapours, 

 Conduction, the dynamical theory of Heat, the application of the 



