Abstract
WE have no publication in English strictly corresponding to Liebig's Annalen or the Annales de Chemie et Physique, and were it not for this now gigantic dictionary of chemistry by Mr. Watts many, both advanced and elementary students of our science, would find their labours considerably increased by the necessity of having to hunt up a great number of facts and records of work done in foreign journals. The chemical record in this volume includes discoveries made in 1880, and in addition a number of exhaustive articles by Professors Armstrong, on Isomerism; G. C. Foster, on Thermodynamics; Schuster, on the Spectium; Thorpe, on Specific Volumes; and others. This part commences with G, the first large articles being Gallium and Gases, the latter being very complete and up to date. A long section is devoted to Heat, which, with the article on Thermodynamics, is very valuable. In the portion on Isomerism we are very glad to notice a slight but still important definition, or rather restriction of the term isomeric. That is, bodies should only be classed as isomeric when their reactions indicate that they are of the same type of structure. This article is of some length, and contains the main points of the hypotheses brought forward by Van l'Hoff and Le Bel and others. We thoroughly agree with the concluding paragraph of the article, and venture to add that probably when we do know a little about the loss or gain in energy in the case of reacting molecules the terms saturated and unsaturated atoms will cease to be employed. The article dovetails into the one on Light, and together they form an important fraction of the book. The greater part of the volume is of course taken up by “organic” and physical chemistry, a considerable number of mineral substances being however described, the section on the metals allied to yttrium being very interesting. The references to the original papers attached to each article render the work even more valuable to those chemikers and physikers to whom a few languages is no difficulty. Although a dictionary, it is very thick, and probably an index would facilitate the search after any particular description; but the want is a minor one.
A Dictionary of Chemistry and Allied Sciences.
By H. Watts Third Supplement. Part II. (London: Longmans, 1881.)
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H., W. A Dictionary of Chemistry and Allied Sciences . Nature 24, 530 (1881). https://doi.org/10.1038/024530a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/024530a0