REVIEWS 
F RANKLAND’S EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCHES.* 
I T is not often that a man, who has only just passed the meridian of life, 
can point to so huge a mass of original work as is represented by the 
noble volume which Dr. Erankland has placed in our hands. Eor upwards of 
thirty years this distinguished chemist has successfully devoted himself to the 
prosecution of experimental inquiries, and has naturally contributed, during 
this period, a large number of memoirs to the transactions of our learned 
bodies, especially to the Royal and the Chemical Societies. Looking back 
upon the accumulated labours of his life, he has deemed it well to gather up 
these scattered fragments, and to piece them together in connected form. 
But it must be remembered that the author has done much more than simply 
collect and co-ordinate his memoirs. To each chapter of his work he has 
prefixed an introduction, indicating its scope, and pointing out the connec- 
tion of the several papers one with another. Those who are interested in 
chemical science — whether, in its pure, its applied, or its physical aspect — 
will assuredly be grateful to the author for presenting his work in so com- 
plete and compact a form. 
How great a revolution has swept over chemistry since the earliest of Dr. 
Frankland’s papers were published ! A young chemist, fresh to-day from the 
laboratory and the lecture-room, and who has read only modern text-books, 
could scarcely understand a memoir written thirty years ago ; and, on the 
contrary, if a chemist of that period had fallen asleep, and could be aroused 
to-day, he would find our modern memoirs equally unintelligible. The 
current of chemical thought has, in fact, been flowing in new channels ; the 
notation formerly in vogue has been completely altered ; the very language 
of the laboratory has changed. Above all, the idea of atomicity or quanti- 
valence, an idea which lies at the root of modern chemistry, had not been 
conceived thirty years ago ; and the reproduction of these memoirs reminds 
one of the part which Dr. Frankland has played in introducing this concep- 
tion to the scientific world. Fully admitting what has been done by such 
men as Kekule and Cannizzaro, it must be conceded that the germ of the 
modern doctrine, the root of the new theory, was due to Frankland’s re- 
markable studies of the organometallic bodies. 
* “ Experimental Researches in Pure, Applied, and Physical Chemistry.” 
By E. Frankland, Ph. D., D.O.L., F.R.S., &c. 8vo. London: Van Voorst, 1877. 
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