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XXXVIII. Notices respecting New Books. 



Outlines of Organic Chemistry. By H. Eobsteb. Moeley, M.A. f 

 DJSc, etc. London : Churchill. 1886. Pp. xx and 490 • cr. 8vo. 

 ^HE large number of manuals of Chemistry that have appeared in 

 •*- recent years may be accepted as a gratifying sign of an ex- 

 tended and awakened interest in the acquisition of experimental 

 knowledge. But the very nature of the case precludes the infusion 

 of much originality into the labours of authorship ; and the process 

 of preparing a book of this kind closely resembles the operation 

 of pouring a liquid from one vessel to another. Under such cir- 

 cumstances the task of the reviewer, if undertaken at all, is reduced 

 to chronicling, not an advance, but a kind of lateral transition. It 

 is seldom we meet with a writer so enthusiastic and so frankly 

 desirous of taking pains as Dr. Morley ; we have therefore selected 

 his ' Outlines ' for some comments dedicated to our younger school 

 of chemical litterateurs. 



The Preface contains a discussion of the plans at present in 

 vogue, or scientifically possible, for constructing manuals of Organic 

 Chemistry. Premising that " it was necessary that the book should 

 include every substance upon which a student might expect to be 

 examined," the author adduces and rejects two of the usual methods ; 

 and then proceeds as follows : — " I have, however, adopted a third 

 arrangement. I have endeavoured to describe compounds in the 

 order in which they may be synthetically produced, so that each 

 compound should be a product of the one before and a producer 

 of the one after. In this way the truth of the majority of the 

 formula? would be self-evident. I have adopted this order be- 

 cause I believe that a correct appreciation of structural formula?, 

 and the power to judge whether a given formula be correct or in- 

 correct, is essential if chemical industry is to make any headway 

 in England. The dogmatic teaching of structural formulae has 

 turned the hearts of many chemists against them altogether ; the 

 result has been that original research has ceased for want of original 

 ideas, and the decline of chemical industry is the result." It is 

 hardly necessary to say that the " arrangement " indicated breaks 

 down ; in by far the greater part of the work the plan of con- 

 venient successive grouping is adopted. Thus " Sugar and Starch 

 Group," " Cyanogen Group," " Polybasic Acids," " Unsaturated 

 Compounds," are consequent among the groups ; and among indi- 

 vidual members, phenol lies between diphenyl sulphide and phenyl 

 acetate ; the constitution of benzene is discussed between phenylic 

 ether and bromaniline, &c, &c. 



An author must be possessed by an exceptionally fervid zeal for 

 chemical " structure" who supposes its neglect to be the cause of 

 the decline of chemical industry in England. It has been con- 

 tended, and with much reason, that chemical industry has not de- 

 clined more in England than elsewhere ; and that in England it 

 has always been exceptionally characterized by original ideas. Of 

 all departments of chemical theory, that of " structure " is the 

 most infertile. The ideas that underlie it are, as Dr. Morley says, 

 '* very simple "; and this fact alone might induce us to suspect it. 

 Phil. Mag. S. 5. Vol. 21 r No. 130. March 1886. U 



