Notices respecting New Books. 231 



down in the ' Elementary Chemistry.' There can be no doubt that 

 our methods of teaching the science of Chemistry in this country 

 were and are still in need of serious reform, and we gladly welcome 

 any new departure which promises to break through the old and 

 stereotyped system of " test-tubing " which reigned supreme in our 

 laboratories a few years ago. The ' Elementary Chemistry ' is a 

 praiseworthy contribution to the desired reformation : but we are 

 not very sanguine of its producing the wished for result, because 

 the authors, in their extreme anxiety to set matters right, have 

 rather strained the deductive method of treatment, and have 

 handled the scieoce in a manner which is hardly justifiable in the 

 present state of its development. "We cannot shut our eyes to the 

 fact that Chemistry is still very largely in the descriptive stage ; and 

 any student who is taught according to a scheme which has so much 

 of the deductive about it as that advocated by Messrs. Muir and 

 Slater must necessarily acquire an exaggerated notion of the im- 

 portance of the so-called physical principles, which are unduly 

 pushed to the front. With respect to the companion volume on 

 Practical Chemistry, we have only to point out that chemical 

 teachers will find therein a large number of very suggestive experi- 

 ments mixed up with a certain amount of practical instruction 

 which the average student will, to say the least, find very difficult, 

 if not quite impossible, to carry out in the laboratory without 

 highly skilled supervision, and this of course greatly detracts from 

 the value of the work. Some of the experiments are in fact culled 

 from the original memoirs of various investigators ; and we should 

 very much question whether such practical exercises could be suc- 

 cessfully carried out by a student without a long course of previous 

 training. It may be that Cambridge students are exceptionally 

 skilful, but our experience has certainly never brought us into 

 contact with such manipulative dexterity on the part of a beginner 

 as appears to be expected of those who are working from the 

 ' Practical Chemistry' of Messrs. Muir and Carnegie. Although we 

 have felt it necessary to make these strictures on the works forming 

 the subject of the present notice, we hope that the authors will 

 meet with better success than we have prophesied for them, 

 because, as we have already admitted, there is ample scope for 

 improving our systems of teaching Chemistry, and every well meant 

 effort in this direction should be encouraged : it is only to be re- 

 gretted that Mr. Muir and his coadjutors have, so to speak, over- 

 leaped themselves in their attempt at reform. 



Exercises in Quantitative Chemical Analysis, with a short Treatise on 

 Gas Analysis. By W. Dittmar, LL.D., F.U.S. Glasgow: 

 William Hodge and Co. 1887. 

 This very useful work will be found exactly what it professes to 

 be — a laboratory guide for students who are commencing the sub- 

 ject of quantitative analysis. Prof. Dittmar's reputation and long 

 experience as a practical teacher are so well established that every 

 contribution to chemical literature from his pen is sure to be 

 welcomed by his confreres. The present book will serve to main- 



