The Chemistry of Common Life

Abstract

IT is now a great many years since the writer of the present review first read the work which as edited by Prof. Church he wishes to introduce to the readers oi NATURE. He has not forgotten the keen interest and pleasure which the book awakened in him as a boy, and which were re-awakened when a few weeks ago the new volume came into his hands. Though times have changed since this book was published—now twenty-five years ago —though we are now almost deluged with scientific manuals and primers, intended to gratify the growing taste for science, or rather, perhaps, to meet the needs of our quasi-Chinese examination systems, yet such books as Johnston's “Chemistry of Common Life,” or the equally charming companion work, “The Physiology of Common Life,” by the late G. H. Lewes, have not been superseded. Full of facts which it is often difficult to find elsewhere, written in a style which will charm the most fastidious, awakening at every step the reader's desire to know more of the subject which is treated of, these two works have always appeared to us very models of popular scientific writing.

The Chemistry of Common Life.

By the late James F. W. Johnston, Professor of Chemistry in the University of Durham. A new edition, revised and brought down to the present time. By Arthur Herbert Church, M.A. (Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London, 1879.)