May 17, 1901.] 
begun by the author in 1888, of preparing a 
‘Select Bibliography of Chemistry,’ he has now 
in preparation a fourth volume, which will 
afford -him an opportunity of supplying omis- 
sions in the three already published. 
JAs. Lewis Howe. 
WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY, 
LEXINGTON, WA. 
Elementary Organic Analysis, The Determination 
of Carbon and Hydrogen. By FRANCIS GANO 
BENEDICT, PH.D., Instructor in Chemistry 
in Wesleyan University. Easton, Pa., The 
Chentical Publishing Co. 1900. 8vo. Pp. 
86. Price $1.00. 
The author states in his preface, ‘‘ Perhaps 
no analytical operation is at once so fundamen- 
tally important and exasperatingly vexatious 
as the organic combustion. 
this fact, save for the meager statements in one 
or two of the larger books on organic chemistry, 
no description of the process of the determina- 
tion of carbon and hydrogen is accessible to 
most students. Asa rule a knowledge of the 
operation is chiefly obtained by word of-mouth. 
‘¢This little manual is presented in the hope 
that the descriptions of processes here recorded 
will aid in making this method of analysis more 
familiar and more satisfactory.”’ 
The author states that he has had an experi- 
ence with over two thousand combustions and 
that in this book he has embodied such modifi- 
cations of the general method as have been 
suggested by that experience. 
Some idea of the book will be obtained from 
the following table of contents: Introduction, 
preparation of oxygen, compressed oxygen, 
gasometers or gas holders, air, purifying appara- 
tus, rubber tubing and stoppers, combustion fur- 
naces, combustion tubes, oxidizing agents, filling 
the combustion tube, boats, absorbing agents, ab- 
sorbing apparatus, cleaning and weighing absorb- 
ing apparatus, weight of material used, burning 
out the combustion tube, general process of 
the combustion, combustion of nitrogenous sub- 
stances, combustion of bodies containing the 
halogens, combustion of bodies containing sul- 
phur, combustion of bodies containing the 
alkali metals, combustion of difficultly com- 
bustible bodies, combustion of liquids and vola- 
SCIENCE. 
Notwithstanding — 
785 
tile bodies, combustion of explosive bodies, 
calculation of results, appendix and index. 
The book is well printed and of convenient 
size for laboratory use. For use in teaching 
students of chemistry the methods of combus- 
tion analysis it will be of great value, and even 
the experienced chemist will find in it many 
suggestions and new ideas. 
; W. R. ORNDOREF. 
BOOKS RECEIVED. 
Cyclopedia of American Horticulture. L. H. BAILEY, 
assisted by WILHELM MILLER. Vol. III., N-Q. 
New York and London, The Macmillan Company. 
1901. Pp. xv-+ 1055-1486. $5. 
School Geography, Europe and other Continents with Re- 
view of North America. RALPH S. TARR and 
FRANK M. McMurry. New York, The Macmillan 
Company. 1901. Third book. Pp. xx+ 574. 
The Limits of Evolution and other Essays illustrating ~ 
the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Idealism. G. H. 
Howison. New York and London, The Macmil- 
‘lan Company. 1901. Pp. xxxv +396. $1.60. 
SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES. 
The American Naturalist for April has as its first 
article a paper by B. Arthur Bensley, on ‘ A The- 
ory of the Origin and Evolution of the Austral- 
ian Marsupialia.’ The adaptive modification of 
their teeth and feet are compared with those of 
placental mammals, the author concluding that 
the marsupials were differentiated from Didel- 
phyd forms, but adding no evidence to show 
from what direction they entered Australia. 
R. M. Strong presents in detail ‘ A Quantitative 
Study of Variation in the Smaller North Amer- 
ican Shrikes,’ and Frank Russell describes ‘ A . 
New Instrument for Measuring Torsion’ in the 
long bones of the human skeleton, but appli- 
cable to other purposes. The valuable series of 
‘Synopses of North-American Invertebrates’ 
is resumed, the present paper, the fourteenth of 
the series, by C. W. Hargitt, being devoted to 
‘The Hydromeduse, Part I.’ The number 
contains the quarterly record of gifts to insti- 
tutions, and the appointments, retirements and 
deaths of scientific workers. 
2 
The Journal of Physical Chemistry, March, 
1901, ‘On the Dielectric Constants of Nitrils,’ 
by Herman Schlundt. The fact that solutions 
