Notices respecting New Boohs. 323 



few easy and instructive experiments ; such a book as every student 

 might go through previously to attending lectures or entering the 

 laboratory. It might also be used as the elementary school-book of 

 chemistry. 2. A text-book of the most important chemical facts 

 and theories. 3. A complete dictionary or work of reference. 4. A 

 set of manuals of analysis, qualitative and quantitative. As to the 

 first of these works, we do not at present possess in the English 

 language a simple compact introduction to chemistry on the unitary 

 system ; but Prof. Odling has undertaken to supply the second book of 

 the series ; for the third we must wait ; while the commencement of 

 a set of analytical manuals was made more than three years ago. For 

 in November 1858 an important original work was published, which 

 Prof. Odling by a strange oversight neglects to notice, although he 

 mentions in his preface a much smaller handbook which was after- 

 wards issued, of no particular excellence, but owing any merit it 

 may possess to the German work of Prof. Will, on which it is based. 

 This adaptation by Mr. Conington attempts to embrace too much, 

 while it lacks the clearness and precision attained in the systematic 

 treatise of Messrs. Northcote and Church. The plan of the latter 

 volume seems to anticipate in some of its details the subsequent 

 work of Prof. Odling. 



The author, in the portion of his Manual now before us, devotes 

 thirty pages of Chapter I. to a brief outline of the generalities of the 

 science. These, however, are not treated with such fulness and 

 simplicity as to enable the beginner to read the present volume 

 without previous initiation into the general principles and termino- 

 logy of chemistry. For at the twentieth line of Chapter I. the stu- 

 dent is introduced precipitately to " chlorous and basylous functions," 

 and then told what is meant by this delightful expression in a couple 

 of sentences which imply previous acquaintance on the student's 

 part with several chemical truths. This reminds one of Pr. Miller's 

 plan of drawing the attention of the young student of organic che- 

 mistry in the first place to glycyrrhizin, a substance whose constitu- 

 tion and relations are, it must be admitted, somewhat obscure. 



In the paragraphs on Combination by Volume, Comparable Vo- 

 lumes, Equivalent Substitutions, and Molecular Types, many im- 

 portant principles are tersely explained ; while the descriptions given 

 of Homologous, Isologous, and Heterologous series are illustrated by 

 well-selected examples. We may cite the two following sets of hete- 

 rologues, remarking en passant that Prof. Odling has shown, by an 

 experiment of his own, that it is possible actually to pass, by a pro- 

 cess of direct oxidation, from the first to the second member of the 

 hydrochloric acid series : — 



HC1 



Hydrochloric acid. 



H 3 P 



Phosphamine. 



HCIO 



Hypochlorous acid. 



H 3 PO 



Phosphoric aldehyd. 



HCIO 2 



Chlorous acid. 



H J P0 2 



Hypophosphorous acid 



HCIO 3 



Chloric acid. 



H 3p 3 



Phosphorous acid. 



HCIO 4 



Perchloric acid. 



H 3 P0 4 



Phosphoric acid. 



§§ 16-22 are devoted to the consideration of acids and salts. The 



