168 
KEVIEWS. 
MOLECULAR AND MICROSCOPIC SCIENCE.* 
T he present work was not wanted to demonstrate Mrs. Somerville’s great 
reading, keen powers of observation, or tkouglitful and comprehensive 
mind. And when we ask ourselves whether it increases our former opinion 
of the most eminent scientific woman in Great Britain, we are hound to 
answer honestly that it does not. From beginning to end, this, the last 
work which the author has given to the world, is a mistake. It is wrong in 
its conception, and imperfect in execution. It shows that its author is widely 
read, and is as industrious a worker as ever. But, on the other hand, it 
presents her to us as a compiler of an inferior order, who attempts a task 
all but impossible to carry out with any satisfactory degree of completeness. 
In these two handsome volumes, Mrs. Somerville has tried to unite the 
history of animate and inanimate nature in their molecular aspects. She has 
sought to show — at least so we judge of her labours — that matter, whether 
it be organic or inorganic, manifests all its phenomena through modification 
in the relation to each other of a number of infinitely minute particles. But 
to do this adequately, in so far as the idea is applicable to even a few of the 
manifestations of the physical universe, would take a far greater number of 
volumes than the author has devoted to the whole subject. It is for this 
reason that we are compelled to believe that Mrs. Somerville has rather 
diminished than enhanced her scientific reputation in producing the work 
under notice. 
The operations of physical force as they manifest themselves in inorganic 
substances occupy the first part of the first volume ; and, as a history of 
the wonders of modem physics, this part of the work is of much interest, 
though in portions it is perplexingly discursive. The headings of the 
section.^ which this part embraces are as follows : — I. Elementary con- 
stitution of matter. II. On force, and the relations between force and 
matter. III. Atomic theory, analysis, and synthesis of matter, utility of 
waste substances, coal-tar colours, &c. IV. The solar spectrum, spectrum 
analysis, spectra of gases and volatilised matter, inversion of coloured 
lines, constitution of sun and stars. These are the titles of the sections as 
given in the contents-table, but they give no idea of the number of questions 
discussed in the text. Indeed, this first part of the first volume is a tightly 
• *^On Molecular and Microscopic Science.” By Mary Somerville, in 
2 vols., with illustrations. London : .John Murray, I860. 
