Abstract
THIS little book, as its title indicates, is intended mainly for the use of students of agricultural chemistry, and we fear it might cause disappointment to anyone who wished to employ it as a guide to general analysis. The science of chemistry is so rapidly increasing, that it would seem almost hopeless, at the present time, to give students a complete knowledge of chemistry and leave them to apply their information to the special subject they intend to follow. Professor Church's book is intended to obviate this difficulty, and after a few introductory lessons of universal application, the student commences experiments on materials with which he is certain to come in contact in agriculture, such as superphosphate, milk, soils, &c. Part I. treats of chemical manipulation, and consists of a number of lessons intended to accompany the course of lectures, and from which the student will learn the mode of performing some simple operations, as solution, filtration, crystallisation, specific gravity, and will become acquainted with the modes of preparation and properties of the principal elements and compounds. Each lesson commences with a list of the apparatus required, the ordinary reagents, and the special materials and tests necessary for the performance of the experiments which are detailed with great clearness. This arrangement is calculated to cause the student to be careful to have everything ready before commencing work, and will thus save him much time and inconvenience, for few things are more likely to endanger the success of an experiment than leaving it at a critical moment in order to obtain some piece of apparatus or reagent which should have been previously prepared. Part II. treats of qualitative analysis, of which Chapter I. deals with the elements, re-agents and tests, and reactions; and here we find the terms univinculant, bivinculant, trivinculant, &c., as equivalent to monad, dyad, triad, &c. The principal distinguishing characteristics of the different groups of elements are here given. The section on reagents and tests will be found useful, for it contains the modes of testing for impurities, and indicates the strength of the different solutions employed, two things to which attention should always be paid. The second chapter of this part describes the methods of qualitative analysis, all rare elements and those with which the agricultural student is not likely to meet being omitted. The third part is devoted to the general processes of quantitative analysis, and the fourth to the examination of manures, soils, water, and food, This book will doubtless be invaluable to agricultural students, besides being useful to those requiring special information on the subjects of which it treats. The appearance of such a work is a satisfactory indication of the extension of the application of scientific chemistry to the useful arts.
The Laboratory Guide. A Manual of Practical Chemistry for Colleges and Schools, especially arranged for Agricultural Students.
By A. H. Church, Professor of Chemistry in the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester. Second edition, enlarged and revised, pp. 170. (London: Van Voorst, 1870.)
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The Laboratory Guide A Manual of Practical Chemistry for Colleges and Schools, especially arranged for Agricultural Students . Nature 3, 25 (1870). https://doi.org/10.1038/003025a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/003025a0