458 
Analyses of Books . 
'July, 
Alphabetical Manual of Blowpipe Analysis s h ™ in e al [ K * 0 ™ 
V Methods , Old and New. By Lieut.-Colonel W. A. Ross, 
F.C.S. (Berlin). London : Triibner and Co. 
Four years ago we had the pleasure of examining a work by 
Col. Ross, entitled “ Pyrology, or Fire Chemistry. We could not, 
in common fairness, pronounce it other than valuable and sug 
•restive, and we felt bound to recommend it to chemists and 
mineralogists as well deserving practical criticism. We declared 
that it would be well worth the while of any student possessing 
the necessary time, patience, and skill, to work through the book 
and verify the phenomena described. How far the chemical 
nublic has condescended to take our advice is doubtful. Had it 
done so to any appreciable extent we should certainly have read 
of confirmations of some of the observations made, and certain 
interesting fads at which the author glances in passing would 
ha H\antrm f eC 0 Xnel 1 Ross has not been idle. In the little volume 
before us he has embodied, in a convenient and portable form, 
the results of his twenty years’ experience in blowpipe analysis. 
We find here, within the compass of 150 pages, a d^nption 
the necessary apparatus and reagents and of the methods for 
their application,— both those discovered by the author and those 
of earlier experimentalists which he has verified. . 
A curious feature of the work is a process for the_ quantitat v 
determination of cobalt in ores and furnace-produCls, based on 
the cdours produced by the oxide when dissolved m vitreous re- 
ents The mechanical details of the operation, which, as it is 
remarked, must be conduaed with very great care, are not given. 
Methods for the deteaion of some of the rarer metals are not 
Wanting, and here the author frequently resorts to the spectro- 
scopic examination of the pyrocones and py r °chrom es v^ich a. 
pioduced. He has devised for this purpose a small spearoscope 
which can be worn like a pair of spectacles, thu ® le ^‘" s 
hands at liberty. He cautions the beginner never to attempt to 
learn the reaaions of any substance from native minerals, how- 
ever pure they may be supposed, but always to work upon pure 
° X Apassage which puzzles us, and some scientific friends whose 
attention we have called to it, is the following . 
“ Chemical Water. A combustible but not vaporisable com- 
pound, composed apparently of hydrogen and oxygen present in 
every natural and in almost every artificially prepared oxide. It 
ignites at apparently red heat, and bu . 
chrome, i.e., a non-lummous flame tinged with colour. 
The deteaion of calcium phosphate in the body of a fly is a 
curious observation. The author remarks that “ volatile metals 
may also be thus deteaed ; for if an ordinary healthy fly be con- 
sumed as above, and the resulting bead compared with another 
