THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. [_February22, lfc7S. 
67G 
original publication of new inventions and their incorpo¬ 
ration in a work of this kind. To take an instance for 
the pm pose ot illustrating our remarks i a few years 
ago the art of dyeing underwent an extensive revolu¬ 
tion, ov ing to the introduction of the coal-tar colours. 
Man} dj e stuffs which up to that time had been largely 
employed suddenly became practically useless, since they 
were unable to compete with the far ffner aniline colours, 
to the use of "which, moreover, fashion gave an enormous 
impetus.. Now it is self-evident that no consumer of 
these articles could have afforded to neglect the study of 
them^ until such time as a complete treatise on the sub¬ 
ject snould be produced. It would be only in proportion 
to.his avidity in seizing the earliest opportunities of ob¬ 
taining information, that he would be able to keep his 
position at all under the severe strain of competition to 
which every manufacture is at the present day exposed. 
But this is not. all; every manufacturer knows that a 
laborious attention to the most minute details of his 
operations is an essential element of success. Now, in a 
general work on technology, details are almost neces¬ 
sarily omitted; the reasons being, first, want of space; 
and, secondly, the fact that, as a rule, it is only those 
who have the practical conduct of the operations who 
can at all appreciate their practical difficulties. Indeed, 
so much is this.the case that many processes proposed by 
men eminent in pure science, and apparently perfect 
both on paper and in the laboratory, have, when at¬ 
tempted on a. manufacturing scale, been found so beset 
vith difficulties that they have either been abandoned 
altogether, or have, lain in abeyance till some one com- 
unng practical skill with theoretical knowledge (a rare 
combination by the way) has taken them up and suc¬ 
ceeded m overcoming the obstacles. A third objection 
to such manuals is that to every manufacturer the bulk 
of their contents will be utterly irrelevant. An iron 
mastei does not require information upon brewino - , or a 
tanner upon the making of gunpowder. 
. Iheae remarks, while applying to technological works 
in general, are specially applicable to the book before 
us.. W ntten by a professor of chemistry in a German 
university, it . is impossible to assume a practical ac¬ 
quaintance with many of the branches with which it 
deals Indeed, it is hardly surprising that the subjects 
snould be treated very superficially considering the large 
extent of ground which has been enclosed. This will, 
perhaps, be^ best seen from a very brief summary of its 
contents. The first division consists of chemical metal- 
lurgy, and. includes the various methods of obtaining 
and applying the metals,—iron, steel, cobalt, nickel” 
copper, lead, tin, bismuth, zinc, cadmium, antimony, 
amenic, mercury, platinum, silver, gold, manganese, 
aluminium, and magnesium, with most of their com¬ 
moner compounds, and a short section on electro¬ 
metallurgy. r The second division treats of the alka- 
les, acids, and non-metallic bodies, explosive com¬ 
pounds, etc. The third division,—glass, porcelain, pot- 
tery, bucks, mortar, and cements. The fourth,—vege¬ 
table substances, fibres, paper, starch, sugar (cane, beet, 
and grape), fermented liquids, bread, vinegar, wood, 
tobacco, essential oils, and resins. The fifth,—animal 
substances, silk, wool, leather, glue, phosphorus and 
lucifer matches, animal charcoal, milk, and meat. The 
sixth, dyeing and calico printing, including the manu¬ 
facture of the coal-tar colours. The seventh,—artificial 
illumination. The eighth, — fuel and heating appa- 
This, has been crammed (for we can use no other 
word) into a book of 745. pages; it need hardly, there¬ 
fore, be a matter of surprise that the omissions are both 
numeious and important. A great deal more might, 
however, have been done to increase the value of the 
work if old and superseded processes had been omitted 
and replaced when possible by more modern ones. For 
instance, the space, occupied by the mention of Heaton 
stee , the production ot which has, we believe, been 
entirely unsuccessful, might have been more profitably 
Used for a description of the Danks’ puddling furnace 
the use of which bids fair to revolutionize the manu¬ 
facture of wrought iron; and Miller’s admirable chlorine 
process for toughening gold certainly deserved more 
mention than two lines, while the obsolete methods of re¬ 
fining by antimony or sulphur occupy ten times as 
much. 
This, however, is not the only fault in the book. The 
omission of details and processes may diminish its- 
value, but actual errors are a more serious matter. A 
few only out of many can be mentioned. In the de¬ 
scription of the Bessemer process, on p. 28 (a very short 
one considering the importance of the subject), first, 
“ egg-shaped vessels made of boiler plate converters ” is 
rather unintelligible; then, we never saw a converter 
with u five |f inch wide fire-clay tubes projecting’ through, 
the bottom,” generally, at least twenty tuyeres are used, 
each of them pierced by numerous channels; thirdly, 
the apparatus is not (in England at least) placed in close 
proximity to a blast furnace, but the pig’ iron, which is- 
generally.analysed previously, is melted''in a cupola be¬ 
fore running into the converter; fourthly, there is no fire- 
day. plug in an aperture at the bottom of the converter, 
the iron being poured out at the mouth when the opera¬ 
tion is finished. 
Another instance, p. 112 . We think any student 
would be puzzled by the following sentence and equa¬ 
tion : — 
u a.. By the fusion of the potassium manganate and, 
chloride of potassium—■ 
“ 6Mn0 3 +2 KCIO 3 +I 2 KOH= (3K,Mn0 4 ) 
-f-KCl-f -6 HoO.” 
Or, again, p. 91 :— 
“ Mg Cl 2 +Hg O = HCl+MgO ” 
Numerous, instances of this sort of thing might 
easily be. pointed out. In fact, nothing so conspicu¬ 
ously indicates carelessness in editing as errors and mis¬ 
prints in formulae. They are just the points which do 
not catch the eye on a hurried perusal, and for that 
very reason require to have more attention directed to 
them. We do not know how far the original is de¬ 
fective in this respect, but the translation evinces a 
serious want of that care which a scientific work, above 
all others, needs. 
Whilst on the subject of the defects in the work, we 
may mention a few more. One is the almost entire ab¬ 
sence of references to original sources of information, 
which is the more to be regretted as a considerable pro¬ 
portion of the book is evidently compiled from original 
publications. Another is the not unfrequent employ¬ 
ment of unusual or little known technical terms without- 
explaining-them. The term “ abraum salts,” on p. 119, 
will puzzle a good many people. 
But we must not be understood to condemn the book 
completely. Although we certainly consider that the- 
hope expressed in the preface, that it will merit the con¬ 
fidence of the manufacturer and student, has not been 
fulfilled, yet there is a large class of readers who require 
information on technical subjects without any intention 
of making a direct and practical use of it. Science is 
every day becoming more and more incorporated with 
our ordinary life, so that in one way or another every 
one is brought more or less directly into contact with it. 
x\ w-ork of this kind places within the reach of unscien¬ 
tific people a very fair knowledge of the manufactures to- 
which they owe a considerable portion of their comforts 
and luxuries, and enables them better to appreciate any 
processes with which they may incidentally meet. The 
amount of information in its closely printed pages is as 
large as it is varied, and the 336 woodcuts are, as a rule, 
well drawn,. and sufficiently accurate to illustrate the 
descriptions in the text; indeed, many of them have the 
appearance of having been drawn from the apparatus.- 
