MaAkcH 28, 1884.] 
and organic chemistry respectively, completed 
in 1877 the long and valuable series. 
The honorable career of this standard work 
reminds us of that other remarkable handbook, 
the ‘ Cours de chymie’ of Nicolas Lemery, of 
which the first edition appeared in 1675, and 
‘the fourteenth, greatly enlarged by Baron, in 
1756, eighty-one years after. 
The new work by Henry Watts is confessed- 
ly ‘‘founded on the well-known manual of 
chemistry of the late Professor Fownes ;’’ and, 
such being its origin, we are not surprised to 
find that it wears the garb of a familiar friend. 
The learned editor of ‘ A dictionary of chem- 
istry ’ has in this manual dropped the name 
‘Fownes ’ from the titlepage, and given us are- 
vised edition bearing his ownname. And this 
he undoubtedly has a right to do, if one takes 
into consideration the great alterations and 
additions made in the preceding editions with 
which his name was associated, together with 
the improvements in the one before us. 
The present volume commences with a short 
sketch of the more important elementary bodies, 
the principal laws of chemical combination, the 
principles of nomenclature, and the representa- 
tion of the constitution and reactions of bodies 
by symbolic notation. In the preceding edi- 
tion (twelfth) of Fownes the three topics last 
named were treated at p. 123 of the volume: 
here they appear at p. 7. 
This introduction is followed by a section on 
chemical physics which has always occupied 
a prominent place in the several editions of 
Fownes. The next section contains a descrip- 
tion of the non-metallic elements in the follow- 
ing order : hydrogen, chlorine and its analogues, 
oxygen, sulphur and its analogues, nitrogen, 
phosphorus, arsenic, boron, silicon, and car- 
bon. This is succeeded by a fuller consider- 
ation of the general principles of chemical 
philosophy, embracing sections on quantiva- 
lence, the periodic law, crystallization, and 
chemical affinity. At this point is introduced 
SCIENCE. 
391 
the subjects of electro-chemical decomposition, 
or electrolysis, and the chemistry of the voltaic 
pile, which are thus divorced from their ration- 
al connection with the chemical physics in the 
earlier portion of the work. The latter half of 
the volume treats of the metals in their usual 
systematic order. 
Watts’s chemistry, on the whole, differs more 
from its predecessor in the arrangement of 
material than in the introduction of novelties ; 
still, we find new paragraphs here and there, 
embodying late discoveries. The work shows 
evidences of having been rather hastily pre- 
pared. Thus, while the newly announced ele- 
ments, scandium, decipium, ytterbium, and 
samarium, are briefly described in their proper 
connection (pp. 458 to 463), only two of them 
(Se and Yb) obtain positions in the list of ele- 
mentary bodieson p.3. Again: under oxygen 
we find no mention of its liquefaction, though 
in the section on chemical physics the experi- 
ments of Cailletet and Pictet are, far too briefly, 
chronicled. Ozone fares very badly, obtaining 
no recognition whatever in the body of the work, 
and being relegated to a single page (584) at 
the very close of the appendix ; and there it is 
very inadequately treated. Its liquefaction by 
Hautefeuille and Chappuis is not mentioned. 
The page is a simple condensation of the two 
pages given to the subject in the preceding edi- 
tion of Fownes, without the addition of a single 
new fact. The atomic weight of antimony 
still appears as 122, notwithstanding the great 
weight of evidence in favor of 120. Meyer 
and Seubert make Sb = 119.6. : 
The well-worn woodcuts, too familiar and 
never very attractive, still do service in illus- 
tration. The volume contains thirty-four pages 
more than the English edition of the last issue 
of Fownes. In spite of some blemishes, how- 
ever, Watts’s Chemistry sustains the high repu- 
tation of its lineal ancestor, and well deserves 
a large patronage. 
INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. 
GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. 
Geological survey. 
Topographical work in North Carolina. — Party 
No. 1 of the Appalachian division was in charge of 
Mr. Charles M. Yeates, topographer, and, during the 
seasons of 1882 and 1883, surveyed the area lying be- 
tween the Blue Ridge and the Tennessee line in North 
Carolina, with the exception of Watauga, Ashe, and 
Alleghany counties. This area lies between the 
35th and 36th parallels, and extends from the 82d 
to the 84th degree of longitude, including the most 
mountainous portion of the state, and that which is 
usually designated as western North Carolina. 
The state line separating North Carolina and Ten- 
nessee follows the summit of the Alleghany Range, 
which, in its different parts, has received various spe- 
cific names; such as the ‘ Unaka,’ the ‘ Bald,’ and 
