226 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
ELEMENTS OF CHEMISTRY.* 
S UCH a work as tliat which is now before us needs no comment from the 
reviewer : it speaks for itself. Indeed, apart from this, Dr. Miller’s 
treatise has already made a great name for itself, and is one of those books 
which are admired by the student for their comprehensiveness of detail, and their 
clearness of arrangement. Need we say that in its present edition (the third) 
everything has been done to bring the book up to the time, by modification 
and addition of matter ? Extending as it does over nine hundred and forty 
pages, this must have been no light task. Yet that it has been satisfactorily 
executed, even a cursory perusal will convince the reader. In the former 
edition the new atomic weights were indicated by the employment of italics, 
but in this volume the more convenient barred letters have been substituted . 
This constitutes the more striking alteration of those portions of the text 
which have before appeared, and is alluded to by the author in a short prefa- 
tory note, in which he also mentions that the conversion of any formula on 
the new notation into that in ordinary use is effected by doubling the 
numbers attached to the barred symbols. The result obtained wiU then be 
either the ordinary formula, or its multiple by two. The section devoted to 
the photographic transparency of various media is extremely interesting, and 
contains the result of the authors original researches, published in 1862 ; in 
this we find it stated : (1.) That colourless solids, which are equally trans- 
parent to the visible rays, vary gTeatly in permeability to the chemical rays . 
(2.) That bodies which are photographically transparent in the solid form, 
preserve their transparency in the liquid and gaseous state. (3.) That 
colourless transparent solids, which absorb the photographic rays, preserve 
their absorptive action with greater or less intensity in the liquid and in the 
gaseous states. And (4.) That xnire water is photographically transparent, so 
that many objects which cannot be obtained in the sohd form sufficiently 
transparent for such experiments, may be subjected to trial in solution in - 
water. We congratulate Dr. Miller upon the excellence of his second 
volume, and hope ere long to see the organic section in the hands of the 
public. 
GARDEN BOTANY, f 
T he author has written this volume for those who are interested, both in 
the examination of our native flora and of those plants which, though 
commonly cultivated in gardens, are not to be found wild in this country. 
We consider that he has accomplished his undertaking successfully, and the 
labour which the book evinces, speaks well for the industrious habits of the 
“ Elements of Chemistry, Theoretical and Practical.” By William 
Allex Miller, M.D., LL.D., V.P.R.S., &c.. Professor of Chemistry in 
King’s College. Part II. Inorganic Chemistry. Third Edition. London : 
Longman & Co. 1864. 
t “British and Garden Botany.” By Leo H. Grixdox, Lecturer on 
Botany at the Royal School of Medicine, Manchester, &c. London : Rout- 
ledge. 1864. 
