518 Notices respecting New Books. 



series. It is a most readable and interesting account of a subject 

 which has always had a powerful fascination for most men of 

 science, and seems particularly opportune at the present moment, 

 when the ultimate constitution of matter is one of the outstanding 

 problems in physical science to which particular attention is being 

 devoted. A clear historical account is given in the first chapter of 

 the various attempts at classification of the elements, and is then 

 followed by an account of the laws of Avogadro, Dulong and Petit, 

 and Mitscherlich. Next comes a very full discussion of the Periodic 

 Law, followed by an account of its applications. In Part II. the 

 problem of chemical evolution is dealt with, the concluding chapter 

 giving a brief resume of the various speculations which have been 

 put forward from time to time regarding the constitution of matter. 

 Here it seems a pity that the Author did not bring his work up to 

 date by giving an account of Professor J. J. Thomson's researches ; 

 these are only briefly alluded to on one of the introductory pages 

 to the book. A number of appendices are given containing various 

 useful tables and notes. In dealing with the bibliography of the 

 kinetic theory of gases, the Author might well have added to his 

 list the recently published translation by Mr. Baynes of Dr. Meyer's 

 book on the subject. 



Inorganic Chemistry. By Raphael Meldola, F.C.S. Revised to 

 date by J. Castell Eyans, F.I.O. Fifth Edition. London: 

 Thomas Murby. 

 When a text-book has run through several editions, it has, ipso 

 facto, established its right to exist ; at the same time, unless the 

 work of revision is carefully carried out for each consecutive 

 edition, it is liable to be displaced by more recent publications. 

 The revision of the latest edition of Professor Meldola' s highly 

 successful text-book has been carried out by Mr. Castell Evans, 

 who, in a prefatory note, expresses the hope that he has " suc- 

 ceeded in bringing the book quite up to date." We feel compelled 

 to state that we cannot share this view. One or two examples will 

 serve to illustrate how imperfectly the work of revision has been 

 carried out. Although argon appears in the table of elements on 

 p. 6, it is not even mentioned in the chapter on the chemistry of 

 the atmosphere. On p. 222 we read the following amazing state- 

 ment : " The metal aluminium is now prepared on a large scale by 

 reducing the double chloride of aluminium and sodium with metallic 

 sodium." As it would be hardly fair to credit Mr. Castell Evans 

 with the colossal ignorance of recent developments in electro- 

 metallurgy which is evinced by the above sentence, we prefer to 

 suppose that somehow or other he simply omitted to read it. 

 Language which is at the present time decidedly archaic has, in 

 many instances, been allowed to remain unaltered. Misprints are 

 exceedingly numerous, and it is difficult to believe that the proof- 

 sheets were read with anything like ordinary care. Altogether, 

 we are unable to bestow much praise on the manner in which the 

 work of revision has been carried out. 



