600 



SCIENCE 



[F. S. Vol. XXX. No. 774 



years ago there were few laboratories in Amer- 

 ica or Europe which included them in regular 

 student work. The publication of Erdmann's 

 " Anleitung zur Darstellung inorganischer 

 Praparate " in 1891 marked the beginning of 

 a new era. Similar books quicldy appeared in 

 this country and in Germany, each adapted to 

 local conditions. All of these were like Erd- 

 mann's first book, simply collections of recipes 

 for making different substances, yet the work 

 was very valuable for many reasons, but chiefly 

 because the students liked it; in the present 

 reviewer's own experience students whose in- 

 terest in analytic work was languid became 

 deeply interested in the preparations and in 

 some cases the interest once awakened ex- 

 tended to chemistry as a whole, and deter- 

 mined the choice of post-graduate work. 



Of late several authors have endeavored to 

 write manuals of preparation on a more scien- 

 tific basis. The books of the two who perhaps 

 have succeeded best are on our list. Professor 

 Blanchard's little manual' is written for be- 

 ginners and is to precede analytical work. It 

 is a selection of simple preparations of com- 

 pounds generally of industrial importance. 

 The notes for each exercise are divided into 

 three parts: (1) A discussion of object of 

 exercise and principle of method, (2) explicit 

 working directions, (3) questions for study 

 which involve additional laboratory experi- 

 ments, the consulting of text-books and orig- 

 inal reasoning. It is assumed that the student 

 has an elementary knowledge of the electro- 

 lytic dissociation theory and of the principle 

 of mass action. The present reviewer used 

 Professor Blanchard's book with beginners 

 last winter with very encouraging results. 

 The attention of teachers is specially called to 

 this book. 



The second book referred to is that of Pro- 

 fessors Heinrich and Wilhelm Biltz,* whose 



^ " Synthetic Inorganic Chemistry, A Laboratory 

 Course for First-year College Students," by Ar- 

 thur A. Blanchard, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of 

 inorganic chemistry at the Massachusetts Insti- 

 tute of Technology. New York, John Wiley & 

 Sons, 1908. 



* " Laboratory Methods of Inorganic Chem- 

 istry," by Heinrich Biltz, University of Kiel, and 



German manual has been ably translated by 

 Professors Hall and Blanchard.. This is a 

 book for chemists and advanced students, not 

 for college students. The authors describe 

 and discuss 171 preparations — few of them 

 easy — divided into seven groups. Group I. 

 contains the elements including reductions by 

 carbon, by aluminothermy, by potassium cya- 

 nide, etc. Under group II. changes of condi- 

 tion are considered, including allotropy, 

 passive condition, colloidal state and ad- 

 sorption compounds. Group III., simple 

 binary compounds. Group IV., compounds 

 containing a complex negative component; 

 such as sodium peroxide, sodium hydrazoate, 

 potassium perchlorate. Group V., compounds 

 containing a complex positive component; in- 

 cluding ammonium salts and the metal-am- 

 monia compounds. VI., complex non-electroly- 

 tes ; including acid-chlorides, esters and metal- 

 organic compounds. VII., preparation of the 

 rare elements from their minerals. 



To aid in the study of the theoretic rela- 

 tions brief general discussions are scattered 

 throughout the book, as well as references to 

 the original literature and to text-books of in- 

 organic and theoretical chemistry. The book 

 is admirable; it is by far the best and most 

 thorough work on the subject which has ap- 

 peared. 



The book of Messrs. Hanson and Dodgson' 

 treats of inorganic preparations, volumetric 

 and gravimetric quantitative analysis and 

 very elementary qualitative analysis. It is 

 one of those curiously proportioned English 

 books written to enable students to pass a 

 given examination, in this case the London 

 Intermediate Science Examination. While 

 the book is well written and is doubtless well 

 adapted for its special purpose, it can be of 

 little interest to teachers here. 



Wilhelm Biltz, University of Gottingen. Author- 

 ized translation by William T. Hall and Arthur 

 A. Blanchard, Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 

 nology. First edition. New York, John Wiley 

 & Sons, 1909, pp. 258. 



° " An Intermediary Course of Laboratory Work 

 in Chemistry," by Edward Kenneth Hanson, M.A., 

 and John Wallis Dodgson, B.Sc. London and New 

 York, Longmans, Green & Co., 1908. 



