306 Notices respecting New Books. 



processes described have received the approval of one of the most 

 skilful masters of chemical analysis in this country. 



Taking it for granted that the work has, by virtue of its merits, 

 established for itself such a position that any further commendation 

 on the part of a reviewer would be superfluous, we have only to 

 point out now wherein the present edition differs from the former 

 one which was published eight years ago. In order to justify the 

 title of the work and to keep to its spirit, many of the older and 

 now well-known methods of estimation have been omitted. In 

 fact, these methods have passed from the "select" stage, and, 

 having undergone the test of experience, are now embodied in all 

 works on analysis, so that the working chemist may be assumed to 

 know all about them or (what comes to the same thing) where to 

 find them when wanted. Other processes have, we are told, been 

 left out for the opposite reason — because they have not stood the 

 ordeal of experience, but have been supplanted by better ones. 

 The ordinary volumetric processes have also been omitted be- 

 cause there are special works, such as that by Sutton, dealiug 

 with this subject. Only in certain cases are titration methods 

 described, and then because of their selectness. For a similar 

 reason the ordinary pyrological methods of analysis no longer find 

 place in the volume, but the reader is referred to special treatises 

 on assaying, of which there are several well-known ones. 



The effect of all this expurgation, however, has not been to 

 diminish the size of the book, because a large amount of new matter 

 has been added, partly in the form of new processes which have 

 been discovered since the last edition, but more particularly in the 

 form of descriptions of the electrolytic methods of estimating 

 metals, which have been so thoroughly worked out of late by 

 Dr. Classen. This part of the work, which will be found parti- 

 cularly useful to English chemists, confessedly owes its origin to 

 Classen's book, many of the illustrations of apparatus having been 

 taken from this source. Altogether the volume extends with its 

 index to 718 pages, and is divided into sixteen chapters. Of these 

 the first deals with the alkaline metals; the second with the alkaline 

 earths ; the third with the rare earths (on which the author is the 

 chief living authority) ; the fourth with chromium, vanadium, 

 uranium, tungsten, and molybdenum; the fifth with zinc, aluminium, 

 gallium, and iron ; the sixth with manganese, nickel, and cobalt ; the 

 seventh with silver, mercury, and copper ; the eighth with cadmium, 

 gallium, lead, thallium, indium, bismuth ; the ninth with antimony, 

 tin, arsenic, selenium, and tellurium; the tenth with gold and the 

 platinum metals; the eleventh w T ith sulphur, phosphorus, and 

 nitrogen ; the twelfth with the halogens and cyanogen ; and the 

 thirteenth with carbon, silicon, and boron. In the fourteenth chapter 

 the electrolytic method and certain special methods of gas-analysis 

 are described. Chapter xv. is devoted to certain miscellaneous 

 processes and what in laboratory terms would be called " practical 

 dodges." The concluding chapter contains sets of useful tables. 



