'November 16, 1872.] THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
395 
Ireland having added their botanical varieties to his re¬ 
search. But his familiar heat was Sherwood Forest, 
and there within a few weeks he took a last farewell of 
scenes so long and delightfully familiar. He had per¬ 
sonal peculiarities, failings, perhaps faults. A vagrant 
life, however picturesque, is rarely favourable to the 
res an gust a domi. In aspect, manners and conversation 
he was the very personification of an unaffected sim¬ 
plicity ; and his old friends in Sheffield concur in the 
regret that a man so modest and interesting, who may 
he considered, perhaps, the last example of a character 
once better known as the old English simpler, should 
have closed his life in indigence and obscurity, if not 
actual destitution. 
Notice has been received of the following death:— 
On the 31st October, Mr. Thomas Percival Mucklow, 
chemist and druggist, of George Street, Aston, Bir¬ 
mingham. 
IfeMttos. 
Qualitative Chemical Analysis. By Dr. C. Remi- 
gius Fkesenius. 8th ed. Translated by A. Vacher. 
London : J. and A. Churchill. 1872. 
Fresenius’ works on qualitative and quantitative 
analysis hold so high a place in the estimation of En¬ 
glish students of practical chemistry that the reviewer 
approaches his task of meting out praise, or of finding 
fault with a standard work like the new eighth edition 
-of the qualitative analysis, with considerable hesitation. 
Most of our readers will learn with satisfaction that 
the liberties which Air. Vacher took with the last 
English edition have not been repeated, and that the 
author’s wish and injunction to adhere strictly to the 
•original text have been faithfully complied with. On 
the score of justice to the German author, and in view 
of the advantages accruing to the English student, we 
congratulate the editor that he abandoned “ the broad 
view of his duty” and contented himself with becoming 
■a mere translator. 
Fresenius divides his hook into two parts, each con¬ 
sisting of several sections. Every one familiar with 
laboratory teaching will know that the first two sections, 
comprising eighty pages of the work, descriptive of 
divers chemical operations and of reagents, are, as a 
Tule, passed over, and that the student is set at once to 
practise the reactions for bases and acids. The infor¬ 
mation they convey—admirable of its kind—is usually 
glanced at only when a reference to any of the manipu¬ 
latory operations described has to be made, or when 
some information about reagents is wanted. The "plan 
■of the book evidently assumes that a general knowledge 
of chemistry, such as is obtainable by attending a course 
of lectures, has been acquired previously to the study of 
-qualitative analysis. If so, the value of the elaborate 
and detailed instructions consists in being useful matter 
of reference. The section treating of the reactions of the 
bases and acids has by general consent always been looked 
upon as the most useful part of Fresenius’ qualitative 
course. The accuracy and fulness of the information 
collected during many years by the author is beyond 
praise; and if it were for nothing else, the book should be 
in the hands of every chemical student. The additions 
comprise, among other things, careful instructions re¬ 
garding the spectra (illustrated bj 7- a new spectrum 
table) of the elements which can be studied by means 
of a Bunsen flame, and the results of Bunsen’s experi¬ 
ments on the deportment of bodies at a high tempera¬ 
ture. Spectrum analysis has made such rapid strides 
during late years that it may be questioned whether the 
meagre information conveyed to the student, by tacking 
on to the qualitative laboratory course a description of 
.some of the more easily obtainable spectra of the metals 
of the alkalies and alkaline earths, satisfies the cravings 
of an earnest student; and whether it may not be advis¬ 
able to reserve spectrum analysis, with the application of 
an induction coil, for a separate course of study. It is to 
be hoped that some of our masters of spectral analysis 
will soon supply a want felt by laboratory students of a 
short and concise treatise on the new branch of chemical 
analysis. 
Fresenius is sometimes carried away in his desire to 
supply as much information as possible, as is evidenced, 
for instance, on p. 103, where we are told that in respect to 
the detection of traces of alumina by an alcoholic solu¬ 
tion of morin, the analyst should compare Goppelsroeder, 
Zeitschr. f. Anal. Chem. 7, 208. We are afraid this injunc¬ 
tion will be as frequently disregarded as not. In fact, 
throughout this section of the book it becomes notice¬ 
able that much of the new information conveyed by the 
author will remain mere matter for reference; and this 
tendency of expanding and taking account of matter 
which cannot be looked upon as absolutely necessary to 
an elementary course of qualitative analysis had, no 
doubt, induced Mr. Vacher—and we own with much 
justice—to apply the pruning-knife. It would have been 
well if the author had distinguished the more important 
from the less valuable reactions by means of small type, 
as is done now in many text-books. In fact, the student 
gets, on first acquaintance, utterly bewildered with the 
host of reactions and injunctions regarding solubility in 
water, alkalies, acids, salts ; and lasting discouragement 
results from not being able to grope his way through 
this labyrinth of disjointed facts. Throughout the 
whole book there is not one hint how best to overcome 
the difficulty of fixing the numerous chemical changes 
upon the memory; the analyst is simply told to perform 
certain operations and to note certain changes. No 
such help" as may be derived from proper methods of 
generalization of results of a similar kind is even so 
much as hinted at. There is no attempt made at ex¬ 
plaining or giving a reason for the chemical changes 
propounded, or at showing the analogy and natural con¬ 
nection between the various reactions. These omissions 
have always been looked upon as serious defects in the 
work; defects which the new edition does nothing to 
efface. 
The second part, comprising directions for the analysis 
of simple salts and complex bodies, exhibits even in a 
more marked degree the painstaking nature of Fresenius’ 
teaching, but if bewilderment seized the pupil on studj'- 
ing the reactions given in the first part, he becomes 
utterly demoralized by the intricacies of the directions 
how and what to do in the second. It is evident that 
the attempt to) guide the analyst through the numerous 
phases of possible complications has misled Fresenius 
into unnecessary repetition and into constant references 
backwards and forwards. Instead of being guided how 
to work out for himself methods of separation based 
upon the knowledge of the properties of bodies which 
he has acquired, the analyst has to be constantly led by 
leading-strings, and to be told how to move, step by step, 
on the chess board of qualitative analysis, and hence 
when left to his own resources he becomes as a rule 
utterly helpless. The distinction between the few 
leading experiments and mere confirmatory experiments 
involved in the preliminary examination of substances 
does not become sufficiently apparent. We hold, with 
all due deference to the eminent author, that it is highly 
objectionable to adopt separate analytical . courses 
whether the substance under examination be a simple or 
compound body,—a solid or liquid,—a metal or an alloy, 
—neither a metal nor an alloy,—whether it be soluble 
in water or acids, or insoluble in either, whether 
organic acids be present or not. There is scarcely a 
commercial salt which does not contain sufficient dis¬ 
cernible 'impurities to advance it from the division of 
simple salts into that of compound bodies. Telling the 
analyst what to expect is not a method conducive to lead 
