166 
ON ELEMENTARY CHEMISTRY. 
REVIEW. 
ART. XLV. — ELEMENTARY CHEMISTRY, THEORETICAL 
AND PRACTICAL. By George Fownes, Ph. D., Chemical 
Lecturer in the Middlesex Medical College and to the Pharmaceutical 
Society of Great Britain. With numerous Illustrations. Edited by 
Robert Bridges, M. D., Professor of General and Pharmaceutical 
Chemistry in the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy. Philadelphia. 
Lea and Blanchard, 1845. 1 vol., 12mo. pp. 460. 
Within a few years past the American chemical student 
has been particularly fortunate in having had placed at his 
disposal the works of several of the most prominent Eng- 
lish chemists, in an American dress. Turner's, Kane's and 
Graham's have successively appeared, and now we have 
that of Fownes, which, whilst it makes no pretension, and 
is much more concise than the treatises before mentioned, 
deservedly claims to have presented the subject in a light 
and manner well calculated to facilitate the acquisition of 
chemical knowledge. Although the author has suited the 
arrangement of his work to the course of Lectures that he 
delivers ; and has designed it as a " convenient and useful 
class book for his pupils," yet there are no peculiarities 
about it which unfit it for the general student, or for the 
pupils of other lecturers. The author's style is lucid, and 
he possesses the faculty of expressing much in a few words, 
so important in works of the kind. 
The first division of the book is devoted to physics, and 
comprises the subject of specific gravity, the physical con- 
stitution of gases, heat, light, electricity and magnetism. 
This part of the work is fully illustrated by figures and dia- 
grams, the importance of which, as helps in chemical study, 
is becoming every day more evident. 
The second part comprises, first, a history of the non- 
metallic elements ; afterwards, the compounds of these ele- 
