484 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. III. No. 65. 



proverbs, sayings and saws about the child in 

 its various relations to the family ; and the vol- 

 ume opens with three chapters replete with 

 attractive examples of the child's tribute to its 

 mother, — delightful exemplifications of the 

 deep and holy impress which maternal love has 

 left on the soul of the race. 



Childhood is spoken of as the golden age of 

 life, ' a moment of God,' ' a time of June,' its 

 days as ' halcyon days, ' a 'heaven on earth;' 

 a belief, says the sanguine author, ' shared alike 

 by primitive, savage and nineteenth century 

 philosopher.' We wish, indeed, this were so ; 

 but, alas! our own observation is that out of 

 a dozen persons asked, ten will tell you that 

 the period of their childhood was by no means 

 the happiest portion of their lives. In sad 

 truth, the golden age of childhood is as much a 

 popular delusion as the golden age of the 

 world. We think of it as such merely because 

 we forget the numberless little miseries which 

 we then endured, and which at the time were 

 grave and great to us. 



But apart from this question of fact, about 

 which the author's opinion in no wise injures the 

 excellence of his labors, the thorough sympathy 

 he has with children, their thoughts and do- 

 ings, beautifies his pages and renders them 

 charming reading as well as sovereignly in- 

 structive. He is no gleaner of dry stubble, but 

 delights in the literary and poetic sides of his 

 inquiry, and brings under contribution the 

 bards, the dramatists and the moralists of the 

 world. His reading has been wide, and not at 

 second-hand, or through translations, but in 

 the originals of a dozen tongues ; as we might 

 expect from one who has already made his 

 mark as a comparative linguist. 



A most useful bibliography of 549 titles and 

 two ample indexes close his volume, and add 

 vastly to its value to the serious student of 

 folk-lore. D. G. Brinton. 



Practical Inorganic Chemistry. By G. S. TuR- 



PIN. London and New York, Macmillan & 



Co. 1895. Pp. 158 + viii. 



This little book is evidently intended for the 



use of pupils in secondary schools. The first 



four chapters contain directions for weighing 



and measuring solids and liquids, for determin- 



ing specific gravity, for measuring gases and 

 observing their behavior under changes of 

 temperature and pressure. The study of 

 chemical action begins with an examination of 

 the effect of air upon different metals. In these 

 experiments the students find out that the bal- 

 ance is of very great service in interpreting the 

 nature of chemical changes. The results of 

 one experiment suggest the making of another 

 experiment and so the work goes on step by 

 step until the pupil finds it possible to separate 

 the active and inactive constituents of the air 

 and this leads him naturally to a determination 

 of its volumetric composition. Oxygen and 

 nitrogen are then studied more thoroughly and 

 a quantitative analysis is made of potassium 

 chlorate. Water and hydrogen are examined 

 in a similarly thorough manner, and in con- 

 nection with the latter the equivalent weights 

 of a number of the metals are determined. 



Only a few of the more common nonmetallic 

 elements are dealt with. The chief merit of 

 the book lies in this, that due attention is every- 

 where given to the quantitative side of chemi- 

 cal phenomena. It is shown how with very 

 simple apparatus beginners can determine the 

 relative quantities of substances that interact, 

 and can acquire a knowledge of important laws 

 of the science. The only criticism that might be 

 made is that the apparatus and methods used in 

 some of the quantitative work, as, for instance, 

 in measuring gases by the volume of water dis- 

 placed, are so very simple that by means of them 

 only roughly approximate results can be ob- 

 tained. An improvement in this direction would 

 be made by collecting the gases in graduated 

 gas measuring tubes, and correcting the gas 

 volumes for the tension of aqueous vapor. 



Taken altogether, the course of laboratory 

 work here given is a most excellent one. It is 

 refreshing to meet with a laboratory manual 

 that is not simply a collection of qualitative 

 tests for substances. This little book can be 

 heartily recommended to all who are engaged 

 in teaching elementary chemistry. 



E. H. Keiser. 



Gheniical Experiments — General and Analytical. 

 By R. P. Williams. Boston, Ginn & Co. 

 1895. 



