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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVII. No. 686 



one's attention, without wearying it, from the 

 first word to the last. While the work is not 

 comparable with von Meyer's in size, yet, to the 

 writer, the choice of material for illustration 

 seems often to be happier. Perhaps no two 

 chemists would make the same distribution of 

 emphasis. But, in view of the theoretical and 

 commercial importance of the work of Roberts 

 Aiisten, von Jiiptner, and Eoozeboom on the 

 allotropic forms of iron, for example, few 

 would grudge the page which Ladenburg de- 

 votes to the matter, and hardly any chemist 

 would side with von Meyer in ignoring these 

 investigators and the subject entirely. 



Armitage's " History " begins at the begin- 

 ning, or pei'haps even earlier. E. von Meyer 

 starts with the Egyptians, but Armitage's 

 opening sentence traces the science back to 

 " the dawn of human intelligence." To make 

 tip for this unusual extension in one direction, 

 the book stops rather unexpectedly with what 

 the author might call the morning of the 

 periodic system. Only a few pages, in an 

 earlier chapter on stereo-chemistry, deal with 

 anything later than this epoch. While the 

 book is in some ways immature, it has distinct 

 merits. Its vocabulai-y of breezy adverbs and 

 adjectives, its rhetorical questions, and its 

 semi-familiar way of interpreting the feelings, 

 as well as the opinions, of the fathers of the 

 science are an effectual antidote to the " dry- 

 ness " which is apt to settle down on history. 



Berzelius, in reviewing the whole subject [of 

 atomic weights], became oppressed with the un- 

 scientific, slapdash manner in which it had been 

 approached by his contemporaries. Was there no 

 general principle . . . whicli might guide one right 

 in the clioiee of atomic weights from the many 

 values svibmitted? 



Quotations, brief and to the point, are intro- 

 duced aptly, and the men are characterized 

 successfully without waste of words. Taking 

 it all in all, the book may be recommended 

 to those who wish a brief and readable ac- 

 count of the men who have made chemistry, 

 of how they made it, and of what they made 

 it. It is too bad, however, that in a book by a 

 Briton, poor Couper should he connected ex- 

 clusively, and so explicitly, with a French 

 journal, and should be made even more like a 



Frenchman than usual by an error in his 

 initials — M. S. Couper! 



Professor Muir's " History of Chemical 

 Theories and Laws " does not profess to be 

 a history of the whole science; to use the 

 author's own words : 



The more I try to understand chemistry, the 

 more I am convinced that the methods, achieve- 

 ments, and aims of the science can be realized only 

 by him who has followed the gradual development 

 of chemical ideas. ... I have not attempted the 

 uncalled for task of writing a history of chem- 

 istry. The object of this book is to set forth what 

 seem to me the main lines along which the science 

 of chemistry has advanced to its present position. 

 ... As the purpose of this book is to show how 

 the main conceptions of chemistry have arisen, 

 widened, strengthened, gained or lost ground, this 

 purpose will be better served by taking changes 

 in the general ideas of the science as the land- 

 marks, than by arranging the history of the sub- 

 ject in chronological periods. . . . The develop- 

 ment of chemical principles is regarded in this 

 book from the position of to-day. The book is not 

 an attempt to move through the past without 

 knowing whereto the course of the science is 

 tending. 



It is, in a sense, therefore, a history of 

 chemical philosophy, arranged so that one 

 set of historically related conceptions after 

 another is followed to its latest developments. 

 The author's plan, of choosing certain lines, 

 has the further advantage that his material 

 is selected, and not, as in the general his- 

 tories, in large measure thrust upon him by 

 the mere fact of its existence. He is thus 

 enabled to enlarge upon the topics and periods 

 which interest him, and therefore to dwell 

 upon them at such length that the interest 

 of the reader has a chance to be thoroughly 

 awakened also. 



In the opening chapter, dealing with the 

 ante-oxygen era, and in many places through- 

 out the rest of the book, the author's well- 

 known familiarity with and interest in the 

 ideas of the alchemists and early chemists pro- 

 vide him with a fertile background and, later, 

 aid him in maintaining the perspective as 

 the work develops. The chemical reforma- 

 tion initiated by Lavoisier, with his recogni- 

 tion of the existence of distinct substances and 



