THE review of my “Inorganic Chemistry” in NATURE of May 1 (p. 3) appears to have been written without much knowledge of the previous history of the work. The reviewer, indeed, writes as if he were criticising an entirely new book, whereas a glance at the preface might have shown him that the volume in question is the first part of the thirteenth edition of Fownes's well-known “Manual of Chemistry,” the first edition of which was published in 1844.