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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
questions which it has ever been our good fortune to read. There is a force 
of style in them, which bears the reader on, nolens volens, while the methods 
of illustration, the well-selected analogies, and the clear description, render 
subjects hitherto obscure and difficult, lucid and easily grasped. The 
lectures were originally delivered before various local philosophical societies, 
and published in some of our literary journals. Some would say, why 
reprint them ? We do not. It seems to us that the publisher has shown a 
wise discrimination in selecting them for reissue. They are upon several 
attractive subjects, and some of them rise so far in value above the merely 
popular, that we should like to see them enlarged and published sepa- 
rately. We refer especially to the three lectures on light, which extend 
over 180 pages of the present volume, and form a masterpiece which is 
certainly unrivalled. The other topics which Sir John takes up are — vol- 
canoes and earthquakes ; the sun j comets ; the weather and weather- 
prophets celestial measurings and weighings ; sensorial vision ; the yard, 
the pendulum, and the metre atoms ; the origin of force j the undulatory 
theory (this lecture ought to go with the three on light) ; and the estimation of 
skill in target-shooting. It is rare to find in combination so much literary 
skill, tutorial power, and scientific erudition as this volume presents. It 
is no flattery to say of it, that it may be read by the savant with pleasure, 
and by the amateur with profit. 
ORGANIC CHEMISTRY.* 
I N our notices of Parts I. and II. of this work, we were compelled to give the 
author unqualified praise for the manner in which he had prepared his 
new edition. In this instance, too, we must do as we then did, for in no 
respect has the author left anything undone to render the volume on organic 
chemistry worthy of his own high reputation, and valuable both to chemical 
students and to manufacturing chemists. As a most comprehensive expo- 
sition of the theories and phenomena of modern organic chemistry it stands 
unmatched, and as a work of reference, not only upon the organic chemistry 
of the laboratory, but upon the complex organic chemistry of the manufac- 
tory, we know of no work which can equal it. The gas manufacturer, the 
dyer, the petroleum distiller, the soap and candle maker, the baker, the 
distiller, the wine merchant, will all do well to purchase Dr. Miller’s third 
volume ; and the physiologist and educated agriculturist will find in it much 
to interest and instruct them. This was true of the older editions, but it is 
trebly true of this one, which contains reference to all the results of recent 
research. The most striking feature of the volume is the introduction of 
the new notation ; this feature may prove a little objectionable to the older 
students, but its employment was inevitable. The new notation has esta- 
blished its claims to recognition ; it is beginning to be universally employed 
* u Elements of Chemistry, Theoretical and Practical.” By William Allen 
Miller, M.D., LL.D., &c. Third Edition. Part HE. Organic Chemistry. 
London: Longmans. 1867. 
