SCIENCE. 



it are given so that it may afterward be used intelligently. Full direc- 

 tions are given for making a number of typical compounds, by methods 

 quite within the reach of every chemical laboratory, so that with the 

 aid of the book a systematic course of laboratory work on carbon com- 

 pounds may be carried on. 



The following description of the book, which is also a noteworthy 

 commendation of it, we quote from a review of it by Prof. M. M. 

 Pattison Muir, Cambridge University, Eng., published in Nature, 

 London, June 4, 1885. 



" This is chemistry. Of how few books professing to be books on 

 chemistry can it be said that they teach us anything of the science ! 

 The student who begins with the study of the carbon compounds has 

 to suffer many things from the text-books. Some of them present him 

 with dry bones in the shape of isolated facts, and bold assertions 

 regarding structural formulae and the linking of atoms. Others lead 

 him into speculations which he is unprepared to follow ; he makes little 

 flights into these, and comes back fancying he is a chemist. Other 

 books (there are not many of them) proceed on the true scientific lines ; 

 but very frequently their pages are encumbered with too many facts 

 about more or less widely separated compounds, or they deal so much 

 with groups of compounds, rather than with the typical individual 

 bodies, that the beginner soon loses his way, becomes perplexed, and 

 is ready to abandon the pursuit. 



" Prof. Remsen has shown us a more excellent way than any of these. 

 He leads the learner by degrees through the early difficulties ; he places 

 before him distinct and detailed accounts of a few typical compounds ; 

 he shows him how these compounds are mutually related ; and then he 

 takes him back to the beginning again, and teaches him how each com- 

 pound he has learned to know represents a group, and how, when he 

 knows the properties of one member of the group, he also knows much 

 about all the members. 



" At the outset Prof. Remsen makes a few wise and pregnant remarks 

 on the meaning of the structural formulae. These 'enable the chemist 

 who understands the language in which they are written to see relations 

 which might easily escape his attention without their aid. In order to 

 imderstand them, however, the student must have a knowledge of the 

 reactions upon which they are based ; and he is warned not to accept 

 any chemical formula unless he can see the reasons for accepting it. 1 

 The whole book is a practical sermon on this text. 



