190 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
TOWNES’ CHEMISTRY.* 
need hardly do more than announce the publication of the first 
volume of a new edition of the late Dr. Fownes’ well-known u Manual 
of Chemistry.” It is now brought out under the sole editorship of Mr. 
Henry Watts, who has evidently done all in his power to render the book 
worthy of the high reputation it has always enjoyed as a student’s text- 
book ; in fact, so much has he added to the present edition, in consequence 
of the rapid advance of chemistry of late years, that the matter has become 
too extensive for a single volume, and the editor has been compelled to 
adopt the expedient (a somewhat dangerous one from a commercial point 
of view) of issuing the work in two parts. 
The arrangement of the matter is the same as in the former editions, and 
the first volume, now before us, is devoted to Chemical Physics and In- 
organic Chemistry. The treatise on the former set of subjects, although 
necessarily brief, furnishes an exceedingly satisfactory outline, more than 
sufficient for the ordinary requirements of the student, and embodying many 
of the most recent results of chemical research. The purely chemical por- 
tion, which occupies nearly four-fifths of the book, is also very good and 
well worked up. The editor has retained the author’s original plan of 
placing the section treating of the general principles of Chemical Philosophy 
at the conclusion of that devoted to the non-metallic elements, but he has 
to a certain extent anticipated some of its teachings by appending to the 
article on Oxygen, or rather, perhaps, combining with what is said on Oxides,, 
a brief exposition of the general laws of chemical combination, with an 
explanation of what is meant by chemical equivalents, and their use in 
representing chemical actions by equations. All these matters receive a 
more detailed and exceedingly philosophical treatment, in the section spe- 
cially devoted to them, following those descriptions of the non-metallic 
elements and their compounds, an acquaintance with which and with the 
phenomena of their production, is undoubtedly a necessary preliminary to* 
the due understanding of these general principles. As far as it has gone 
this new edition of “ Fownes’ Manual of Chemistry ” appears to us to be 
one of the best, if not the best, handbook that the English student pos- 
sesses. 
(( T?/Trrrn oo 5 IVTannal omiof vir ortvo+i nal anrl Uva /rfi ” Vnl T 
rec ted by Henry Watts, B.A., F.R.S. 8vo. London: J. & A. Churchill. 
1877. 
