The Principles of Chemistry

Abstract

AN English translation of the earlier (fifth) edition of this remarkable book was prepared by Mr. Kamensky, and edited by Mr. A. J. Greenaway, in 1891. It is therefore familiar to the English chemical world; and that a second edition of the English version should be called for in a comparatively short time, is a proof that the views of the author have a fascination which secures for the book a wide circle of readers. The author speaks of it modestly “as an elementary textbook of chemistry”; but it is probable that the previous edition has been exhausted less by a demand on the part of beginners in the subject, for whom, to say truly it is little adapted, than as a consequence of the interest which has been excited among advanced students and professed chemists by the exposition of the doctrine embodied in the so-called “Periodic Law,” which is the principal feature of the work. Enough has already been said in the pages of NATURE (see vol. xlv. p. 529) concerning the characteristics of the book itself—the extraordinary development of the foot-notes, which often expand to such dimensions as almost to drive the text out of the page, and which in many cases contain far more interesting matter; the strange inequality in the materials collected, many processes, especially those connected with manufactures, being quite antiquated; and others which need not be recalled. The confusion of proper names, owing to errors of spelling, is not so conspicuous as in the former editions, though one ludicrous substitution occurs in the chapter on spectrum analysis, where Huggins is three times over transformed into Huyghens ! Such defects, however, do very little to impair the real value of the book, or obscure the genius of the author. Turning from the attitude of the literary critic to that of the scientific inquirer, it is much more profitable to see what such a chemist as Mendeléeff has to say about special questions of fundamental or primary importance.

The Principles of Chemistry.

D. Mendeléeff, Translated from the Russian (sixth edition) by George Kamensky, A.R.S.M. Edited by T. A. Lawson, B.Sc., Ph.D. Two vols. Pp. xviii + 621 and 518. (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1897.)