404 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
In order to secure uniformity in tlie work wliicli is now before us, Dr. 
Frankland has so modified some of his early papers as to bring them into 
accordance with modern ideas. Jn transcribing these memoirs he has 
naturally followed his peculiar system of notation. This we of course 
expected to find ; but, nevertheless, we cannot help regretting the step. In 
fact, ingenious as Frankland’s system unquestionably is, it may be fairly 
doubted whether it is destined to survive its author ; and it is certain that 
it never would have attained to its present position, had it not been for the 
very influential position which he occupies, and the power which he thus 
has of leading most of the younger chemists. As a matter of course, the 
pages of the massive volume in our hands are freely besprinkled with those 
obtrusively thick symbols which stand as initials to indicate the elements of 
highest atomicity in the formulae, and with those confusing little o’s, which 
enter so commonly into the formulae of the metallic radicals, and are the 
pest of a printer. 
Dr. Frankland’s researches naturally arrange themselves in the form of a 
triad, dealing as they do with Pure, with Applied, and with Physical 
Chemistry. In the department of pure chemistry, we find those famous 
organic researches, partly analytic and partly synthetic, on which Frank- 
land’s fame was originally built, and will always rest. In the applied sec- 
tion we have not only his well-known studies on gas illumination, but also 
those investigations on the pollution and purification of water, by which 
Dr. Frankland’s name is everywhere known. Finally, in the physical group 
of papers we meet with a reproduction of his researches on flame — those 
researches which have sometimes been cited to disprove the long-established 
results of Davy. 
On closing this work, which runs to upwards of a thousand pages, we 
must admit that it is anything but light reading. The volume belongs, in 
fact, to the class of books which Dr. Johnson described as being “more easy 
to praise than to read.” Still, so many of Dr. Frankland’s researches have 
become classical, that the work in which they are reproduced should at once 
take a place in every chemical laboratory and library. 
I1IS little work is well printed, prettily illustrated, and altogether taste- 
fully got up ; but having said this, we are unable to add much else in 
its favour. The object of the writer has been to present the outlines of 
geological science in simple fashion, and with special reference to the rocks 
which occur in Ireland. It is to be regretted, however, that before under- 
taking this task, he did not prepare himself by a deeper study of his subject. 
Whether in its geology, its palaeontology, its mineralogy, or its chemistry, 
there is much in the book to which we are bound to take exception. What, 
for instance, can be more absurd than the statement that basalt “ consists 
* 11 Outlines of Geology, and Geological Notes on Ireland.” By William 
Hughes. Third edition : revised, considerably enlarged, and with numerous 
Illustrations. Sin. 8vo. Dublin : M. II. Gill & Son, 1879. 
GEOLOGY OF IRELAND.* 
