Abstract
ALTHOUGH ostensibly a report on the composition of ocean water, this memoir includes in its 250 large quarto pages the record of a far more extensive research than the title implies. It contains a detailed account of seventy-seven complete analyses of sea water, largely accomplished by the use of new and specially invented methods, the record of several independent researches into purely theoretical matters, and a number of exhaustive experimental criticisms of methods employed in similar work by other chemists. Taken altogether, the Report reads like the account of a life-work, and it is wonderful how the immense amount of work described in it could possibly be accomplished in the six years which have elapsed since the return of the Expedition. The rapid completion of the work is in great measure due to Prof. Dittmar's custom of having all the routine determinations made by assistants under his immediate supervision, while he devoted himself specially to the invention and trial of new methods and the repetition of doubtful experiments. The gentlemen who assisted in the research, and whose services Prof. Dittmar is scrupulously careful in acknowledging, are Messrs. John M'Arthur, Robert Lennox, Thomas Barbour, W. G. Johnston, James M. Bowie, James B. M'Arthur, G. A. Darling, and Moses T. Buchanan.
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MILL, H. The Composition of Ocean Water 1 . Nature 30, 292–294 (1884). https://doi.org/10.1038/030292a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/030292a0