Notices respecting New Books. 153 



the water-level is adjusted by means of the tap, and the volume 

 of gas produced in the reaction then read off on the graduated 

 tube c ; the temperature of the water in the cylinder B is then 

 ascertained, as well as the height of the barometer at the time. 

 From the data thus obtained, the volume of dry nitrogen at 0° C. 

 and 760 millims. can be easily calculated by the usual formula. 



XXI. Notices respecting New Books. 

 Experimental Researches in Pare, Applied, and Physical Chemistry. 



By E. Frankland, Ph.D., D.C.L., F.B.S. London : John Yan 



Voorst. 1877. 

 "F)B. FRANKLAND has laid his chemical brethren under a 

 •*^ great obligation by the publication of his researches in a col- 

 lected and classified form. That obligation may be best repaid by 

 the determined efforts of other chemists to explore those fields of 

 knowledge which have been left untrodden by the author of the 

 work now before us. 



The researches of the South-Kensington Professor extend over 

 a period of about thirty years ; they are arranged in three sections 

 — Pure, Applied, and Physical Chemistry. 



In the division of Pure Chemistry, Dr. Frankland has rendered 

 himself famous by his researches upon the Alcoholic radicals, 

 Organo-metallic bodies, and Synthesis of the Acids of the Lactic, 

 Acrylic, and Acetic series. At the time when the earlier of these 

 investigations appeared, the chemistry of the Carbon compounds 

 was in a state of confusion : many facts had been collected, but 

 little breath of life had been breathed into these dry bones. Lau- 

 rent and Gerhardt had scarcely made known the results of the appli- 

 cation of their brilliant classificatory powers to the facts of organic 

 Chemistry. The theory of radicals had indeed been advanced by 

 Liebig and Kane ; but the unscientific use of hypotheses concerning 

 the nature of organic compounds was yet, for the most part, domi- 

 nant. Berzelius and his dualistic theory were masters of the field. In 

 terms of this theory, Berzelius viewed Acetic Acid as a conjugated 

 compound containing the groups C 2 H 3 and C 2 3 (old notation). It 

 is worthy of remark that the exceedingly imperfect and one-sided 

 theory of Berzelius, as applied in the above-cited case, should 

 have furnished an idea which, when worked out by Dr. Frankland 

 in his researches upon the " Conversion of Cyanogen into Oxatyl," 

 led to results of much importance in advancing the more complete 

 and more probable theories of modern Chemistry. The Radical theory 

 of Liebig found great support by the publication of Frankland's 

 memoirs upon the " Isolation of the Alcoholic Radicals." In at- 

 tempting to isolate the radicals Methyl, Ethyl, and Amyl by the 

 action of metals upon the iodides of these bodies, Frankland ob- 

 tained results which he then regarded, and which, judging from the 

 introductory remarks in the present volume, he seems still inclined 

 to regard, as proof of the actual isolation of these radicals. Frank- 

 land pointed out the analogy between Hydrogen and the radicals of 

 the Alcohols ; and, if the molecular formula of Hydrogen be H a , he 



