Abstract
(i)THE new English edition (a translation of the fourth German edition) of Ostwald's “Outlines,” the pioneer elementary text-book on general chemistry, is sure to receive a warm welcome on the part of English-reading students of chemistry. During the seventeen years which have elapsed since the preceding edition (in Prof. James Walker's translation) was published, Ostwald's “Outlines” had practically ceased to be known to the ordinary English student of chemistry; and the reason for this is, of course, to be found in the fact that during this interval other text-books, due in most cases to pupils of Prof. Ostwald himself, appeared both in this country and in America, which were written in a manner more suited, perhaps, to the mental aptitudes and to the manner of thought and train ing of British and American students. The treat ment of the subject by Prof. Ostwald was, as it seems to the reviewer, somewhat too abstract and too philosophic for the average young student of chemistry in this country, who, partly through lack of taste for or training in philosophy, partly perhaps owing to our examination system, desires to have the facts and laws and theories of physical chemistry placed before him as clearly, as succinctly, and as concretely as possible. This “defect” of the older editions the author has tecognised, and has to a great extent remedied and even if it do not displace the indigenous text books, the “Outlines” will be valued, in any case by more advanced students and by teachers, on account of its breadth and originality of treat ment and the suggestiveness of its ideas.
(1) Outlines of General Chemistry.
By Prof. Wilhelm Ostwald. Translated with the author's sanction by Dr. W. W. Taylor. Third edition. Pp. xvii + 596. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1912.) Price 17s. net.
(2) Grundlinien der anorganischen Chemie.
By Wilhelm Ostwald. Dritte Auflage. Pp. xxii + 860. (Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1912.) Price 18 marks.
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F., A. (1) Outlines of General Chemistry (2) Grundlinien der anorganischen Chemie. Nature 89, 526–527 (1912). https://doi.org/10.1038/089526a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/089526a0