Notices respecting New Books. 



191 



Metal positive relative 

 to other metal. 



Metal negative 

 relative to other metal. 



Deflexion. 



1 

 Difference of ! 

 potential in 

 volts. 



Polished Zinc B. 

 Unpolished. 

 Unpolished Copper. 

 Polished Copper. 

 Platinum. 

 Platinum. 



Polished Zinc A. 

 Polished Zinc. 

 Polished Copper. 

 Polished Zinc. 

 Polished Zinc. 

 Polished Copper. 



2-0 

 170 



1-6 

 41-6 

 43-6 



90 



•04 

 •32 

 •03 



•78 

 •82 

 •17 



Hot air from the flame seems to have a different property 

 from ordinary hot air, because the hot air from a large red- 

 hot soldering bolt, put in the place of the spirit-lamp, had no 

 effect; nor had breathing upon the plates, nor the vapour from 

 hot water any effect. 



XXII. Notices respecting New Books. 



The Theory of Determinants in the Historical Order of its Development. 

 — Part I. Determinants in general, Leibnitz (1693) to Cayley 

 (1841). By Thomas Mum, LL.D. (Macmillan, 1890. Pp. xii 

 +278.) 



DE. MUIR is most favourably known to English mathematicians 

 by his previous work in the region of Determinants, both in 

 original directions and in the way of gathering together and puttiug 

 into compendious shape the results obtained by his predecessors. 

 By the way, we are glad to see that a " greatly enlarged" edition of 

 his " treatise * is in course of preparation. It was fittiug and 

 natural that he should be inspired to w r rite some such work as the 

 present, if only he could secure the leisure for doing so. He him- 

 self remarks that whilst writing his " treatise," " it was repeatedly 

 forced on my attention that the history of the subject had been 

 very imperfectly looked into. Not only, as it appeared, had injus- 

 tice been done by the attribution of isolated theorems and demon- 

 strations to authors other than the first discoverers, but the labours 

 of the great founders of the theory had been disproportionately 

 represented, and a considerable amount of valuable work had 

 actually been lost sight of altogether." He accounts for this natu- 

 rally enough. The outcome of his discovery was the forming of a 

 resolution " to set about collecting the whole literature of the sub- 

 ject, in order that, as a first step on the way to a history, a biblio- 



