1878.: 
Notices of Books. 
553 
mediaeval asceticism, and of that contempt for matter and “ the 
flesh ” which has been so formidable a hindrance to man’s intel- 
lectual and physical progress. 
Elements of Chemistry , Theoretical and Practical. By W. A. 
Miller, M.D., &c. Revised by Charles E. Groves, Sec. 
F.I.C., F.C.S., &c. Part II. — Inorganic Chemistry. Sixth 
Edition, with Additions, London : Longmans and Co. 
1878. 
Students and teachers, young and old, will welcome the sixth 
edition of Part II. of Dr. Miller’s well-known Manual, which 
this time is entirely revised by Mr. Groves, who assisted Prof. 
McLeod in the preparation of the fifth edition, published in 1874. 
During the last four years inorganic chemistry has made but 
little progress, both professors and students preferring to employ 
their talents and occupy their time with trying to cram an addi- 
tional atom of oxygen or hydrogen into some unhappy organic 
radical that no one but themselves has ever seen, and that 
strongly objeCts to give hospitality to the intruder, rather than 
with one or other of the endless problems with regard to the 
commonest reactions that are hourly staring us in the face. 
Although there are but few new faCts to chronicle during the 
period mentioned, one of them at least is of very great im- 
portance. We of course allude to the discovery of gallium by 
M. Lecoq de Boisbaudran, and its very unexpected confirmation 
of Newland’s and Mendelejeff’s periodic law. The influence of 
this discovery on the theory of the relationship between the ele- 
ments, first glimpsed by Prout, is a very important one, and it 
might, we think, have been more enlarged upon in the fifty pages 
which Mr. Groves has added to the sixth edition. An account 
of Davyum, too, is found in its proper place. Short accounts 
are given of Deacon’s and Weldon’s chlorine processes, but we 
have searched in vain for any notice of MaCtear’s sulphur rege- 
neration process. The ammonia process for making sodic 
carbonate is briefly described, but we are not informed whether 
it is successful or not. If, as has been stated, the Island of 
Cyprus contains innumerable salt-springs, this process may play 
an important part in the regeneration of our latest possession. 
Under Iron, the description of Danks’s method of puddling by 
machinery ; and short accounts are given of Crampton’s and 
Henderson’s processes. The account of Siemens’s process is 
also enlarged— a remark that equally applies to the Bessemer 
process. 
As in the fifth edition, Dr. Frankland’s constitutional formulas 
are introduced between brackets, to show that they are interpo- 
