REVIEWS. 287 



Petroleum and its Products. By A. Norman Tate, F.C.S. London : 

 J. W. Davies. 



The trade in petroleum has already attained to such a magnitude, 

 that Mr. Tate has done good service to the public in issuing this 

 treatise, which gives an account of its history, origin, composition, 

 uses, and commercial value, the methods employed in refining it, and 

 the properties, uses, &c, of its products. Mr. Tate has dealt with the 

 subject thoroughly and exhaustively in all its branches, and his little 

 work may be recommended as a reliable hand-book for all interested in 

 this substance. 



The Ghost as Produced in the Spectre Drama, &c. By H. 

 Dircks, C.E. E. and F. Spon. 



Mr. Dircks has, we think, been ill-advised in thrusting so much of 

 his private quarrels in the matter of the ghost apparatus before the 

 public. More than one-half of this little book of 100 pages is taken 

 up with details and extracts from correspondence, and remarks upon the 

 manner in which he has been treated. It would seem that the right of 

 representing his phantasmagoria inventions was freely presented by him 

 to the Polytechnic Institution, and what Mr. Dircks complains of is, that 

 his name as the inventor has been almost generally withheld, and that 

 having been thus liberal to the Institution, common justice demanded, 

 that at least the honour, when honour was due, should have been awarded. 

 This appears to be the sore point. The book before us, divested of this 

 personal discussion, would have been interesting enough ; for Mr. 

 Dircks not only gives us the benefit of all his progressive discoveries 

 in the matter, from the paper first read at the British Association 

 Meeting at Leeds, in 1858, to the more recent improvements, with full 

 explanations of the machinery, apparatus, and processes adopted in 

 these ghost dramas, and further favours the public with a number of 

 new adaptations. As a curious description of these spectral illustra- 

 tions, the book is most interesting. 



The Colouring Matters Derived from Coal Tar. By Prof. H. 

 Dussauce. Philadelphia ; Baird. 



A useful compilation of the most important and recent information 

 relative to the coal dye3 now so extensively used. The several colours, 

 and the practical mode of employing them, are specifically given, 

 and the theory of the fixation of colours and mordants popularly ex- 

 plained. 



