Solution and Electrolysis

Abstract

UP till the beginning of the present year the English reader had practically only two text-books to guide him in getting some idea of the scope and importance of the Newer Theory of solutions. These were “Solutions,” a translation of certain parts of Ostwald's Lehrbuch, and “Outlines of General Chemistry,” by the same author. The former gave but an imperfect account of the subject, as it excluded the electrical properties of solutions, and thus the mass of material which groups itself around the hypothesis of electrolytic dissociation; while the latter, although giving a general survey of the theory, dealt with it in but a superficial manner. To these was added, early in the present year, Nernst's “Theoretical Chemistry,” and in this book is to be found the best description in English of the present condition of the theory; for although the description is by no means rich in records of actual observations, yet, on account of the neat methods used in dealing with the theory of individual questions, and the comprehensive mode of attacking the entire subject, it is worthy of the attention of all students of physical chemistry.

Solution and Electrolysis.

By W. C. Dampier Whetham (Cambridge: The University Press, 1895.