556 Analyses of Books, [September, 
we deeply regret the system which compels men of learning and 
ability to turn their attention in this direction. 
A list of the questions which have been put to candidates at 
examinations for the last twenty years will of course give the 
student a very fair notion of the ordeal awaiting himself. We 
have met with “ superior ” men who, whilst believing in and 
defending examinationism, denounce books such as the one before 
us as “ instructions how to cheat the examiner.” We cannot 
accept such a view. If the said “ superior ” men really wish for 
realities in place of shams, let them give degrees of B.Sc., D.Sc., 
&c., to those who have proved themselves capable of research, 
and to none others. In the meantime everything that tends to 
make the farcical character of examinationism more manifest 
has our best wishes. 
A Dictionary of Chemistry and the Allied Branches of other 
Sciences. By Henry Watts, B.A , F.R.S., F.C.S. As- 
sisted by Eminent Contributors. Third Supplement. Part II. 
London : Longmans and Co. 
Mr. Watts and his learned coadjutors are ably and laboriously 
pursuing a task which reminds us of the much-quoted stone of 
Sisyphus. As fast as they approach completion new discoveries 
are brought forward, and require extensions and modifications of 
what has been already written. The dictionary form which the 
author has adopted is the only one at all suitable for a science in 
a state of such rapid growth and transition. 
The volume before us completes the record of chemical re- 
search as far as the end of 1878, and embodies the more important 
discoveries which have appeared in 1879 and 1880. 
That the editor has executed his difficult task most satisfacto- 
rily might have been inferred from the former volumes, even if 
we had not convinced ourselves by careful examination that such 
is the case. 
Among the more prominent and valuable articles we must call 
especial attention to that on Heat, which includes the recent im- 
portant development of what is called thermo-chemistry. The 
determinations of the heats of chemical combination, of che- 
mical acftion, of solution as determined by Berthelot, Thomsen, 
Troost, Hautefeuille, &c., are given at great extent, and the sig- 
nification of these researches for chemical theory is pointed out. 
The latest results in thermolysis, or dissociation, are embodied 
in the same article. 
The article on Specftral Analysis is from the pen of Dr. A. 
Schuster, a physicist who has made this department peculiarly 
