Abstract
Now that there can be obtained a considerable variety of really good text-books of elementary chemistry suitable for all the usual needs of the present day, one is entitled to look for special features in any new manual. We fail to find any reason for the existence of the volume before us: wherein it differs from others that enjoy general recognition, it is incomplete and erroneous. It has neither index nor contents table, but this is quite a trivial matter when compared with the imperfections of the body of the work. On pp. 19 and 20 there are nine attempts at equations, none of which are correct, while many represent impossible or at least unknown reactions; and in the following paragraphs, on graphic notation, bonds, and radicles, there is a collection of statements that read like the imperfect recollections of a student who never understood the subject. A single atom of oxygen is shown with curiously shaped projections as an example of an element with an even number of bonds existing as a single “atom-molecule.” It is stated emphatically that “the element having the greatest number of bonds is always printed in thick type,” but we search in vain for thick type in any formula in the book. The statements that are intended to convey the facts of chemistry are vague, often misleading, and very rarely of a practical character. For an illustration of the style there is no need to go further than the chapter that treats of the first element, hydrogen. It states that “on throwing a piece of sodium into water the sodium combines with part of the hydrogen of the water to form caustic soda, liberating the other part of the hydrogen.” The volume closes, as one would expect, with the questions set by various examining bodies during the last three or four years.
Inorganic Chemistry: the Chemistry of the Non-Metals.
By J. Oakley Beuttler (London: Relfe Brothers.)
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Our Book Shelf. Nature 42, 614 (1890). https://doi.org/10.1038/042614a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/042614a0