i88 3 .j 
Analyses of Books. 
105 
0n 50 ™ e ^proved Laboratory Appliances for conducting many 
Chemical Operations at the same time, and hastening the 
Co mpietion of several of them. By Robert Galloway, 
M.R.I.A F.C.S., and F. J. O’Farrel, M.R.I.A., F.C.S. 
(Reprinted from the “ Philosophical Magazine.” 
The authors of this memoir lay down the proposition that “ it 
requires a greater expenditure of time and labour to arrive at 
results in Chemistry than it requires to attain like ends in any 
other of the indudhve sciences.” Without absolutely accepting 
this view, we may freely admit that the time and labour so ex- 
pended are exceedingly great, and that any improvement tending 
towards this end must render the task of research lighter and 
easier. We are. told, as an instance of what such inventions may 
practically signify, that if Liebig’s apparatus for quantitative or- 
ganic analysis had been devised before Chevreul began his 
examination into the constitution of fats, he would have been 
enabled to save seven of the fourteen years which he devoted to 
r 1 ™estigation. Seven years of the working time of a man 
like Chevreul are no trifle. 
Messrs. Galloway and O’Farrel remark that “ at the present 
ime a great deal of labour is involved, and time wasted, by 
having to set up in a laboratory, where a variety of work is going 
on, so many distindt pieces of apparatus, each requiring to be 
started separately. For obtaining the indispensable distilled 
water, a special still and heating apparatus is generally set apart 
tor the purpose. Distillation under diminished pressure is ano- 
ther distinct, and frequently troublesome, operation. If a filter- 
pump is employed to hasten filtration, the pump is solely devoted 
to that purpose. Then there are the open and closed water- 
baths, each distindl and requiring a separate heating-apparatus : 
and tor heating and drying substances above ioo° C. the methods 
are most inconvenient. But of all the slow methods, that of 
evaporating by means of the ordinary air-pump and absorbing 
the water as it evaporates by means of sulphuric acid is, we 
think, the slowest. The appliances that are in use generally for 
forcing steam, air, or gases over substances, are, to say the least, 
inconvenient. 
“ By the aid of a small general air-pump connected to a little 
stationary engine, and ordinary or superheated steam, all these 
operations can be carried on at the same time with these appli- 
ances excepting the one last described : for this operation there 
is lequired, in addition to the air- or sudtion-pump, a compression- 
pump in connexion with the engine. 
“ In carrying out some researches recently we found great 
convenience and saving of labour and time in employing a 
general air-pump. This has led us to devise appliances for the 
VOL, VI. (THIRD SERIES) ! 
