(1) THOSE who have used, and appreciated the merits of, Prof. Smith's well-known “Introduction to Inorganic Chemistry” will study with interest his new “Text-book of Elementary Chemistry” and the “Laboratory Outline” which has been written as a companion to it. The published work of the author, and the brilliant results that have followed from his experimental researches, are a sufficient guarantee of the authenticity and accuracy of the statements of which the book is composed, and there is no lack of novelty in the range of subjects or in the facts which are quoted as illustrations. A perusal of the book has left in the mind of the reviewer some feeling of disappointment that the author has consented to be bound by the narrow restrictions involved in the compilation of one of the smaller elementary text-books. So many fascinating subjects are dealt with that one cannot help regretting again and again that a few lines in the text have had to carry a load which might well have been distributed over a page or a chapter. Thus the allotropy of sulphur, the constitution of water, the chemistry of petroleum, starch and sugars, enzymes and fermentation, the fixation of nitrogen, radioactivity and the inert gases of the atmosphere, pottery and cement, colloids and adsorption, fats and soaps, explosives and artificial silk, are all touched upon very briefly as illustrating the fundamental laws of chemistry or its applications to everyday life. Facts and observations such as these are amongst the most valuable assets of the lecturer, who can use them at his own discretion to cover with flesh the bony skeleton on which his subject is built up; some teachers at least will feel disappointed when they have to compete with a text-book in which the dry bones are already so amply covered with flesh. The attention of English teachers may be directed to the brief description given on pages 207 and 208 of the Frasch process of mining sulphur at the new township of Sulphur, Louisiana, where a quarter of a million tons of sulphur are pumped up every year in a molten state from beneath a quicksand with the help of superheated steam. (1) A Text-book of Elementary Chemistry. By Prof. A. Smith. Pp. x + 457. (London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1915.) Price 5s. net. (2) A Laboratory Outline of Elementary Chemistry. By Prof. A. Smith. Pp. 152. (London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1915.) Price 2s. net. (3) A Text-book of Inorganic Chemistry. Edited by Dr. J. Newton Friend. Vol. viii.: The Halogens and their Allies. By Dr. G. Martin and E. A. Dancaster. Pp. xviii + 337. (London: C. Griffin and Co., Ltd., 1915.) Price 10s. 6d. net. (4) Modern Chemistry and its Wonders. By Dr. G. Martin. Pp. xvi + 351. (London: Sampson Low, Marston and Co., Ltd., 1915.) Price 7s. 6d. net.