Abstract
THE authors of this manual express the “opinion that quantitative work in an elementary course often consumes time that were better spent in the accumulation of useful and necessary qualitative information.” Quantitative work is therefore reduced to a bare minimum and a scheme for the qualitative investigation of chemical phenomena, covering a fairly wide field, has been elaborated. A novel feature is the introduction of linear scales showing the relationship between the temperature and the vapour-pressure of water and between the density and the concentration of several common reagents. Working directions are minutely specified, and almost every page is liberally sprinkled with cross-references, which are likely to bewilder the student, whose natural desire to discover things for himself is stifled by the warning in heavy type that all unauthorised experiments are strictly forbidden. Yet the authors hope to “foster something of the research spirit at an early age”! About onefourth of the book deals with ordinary qualitative analysis, this section being prefaced with the following instruction to the beginner: “The work is based on differences in solubility. Commit to memory the table of solubilities and get some classdrill in its applications.” Such methods will not appeal strongly to teachers in English schools.
Exercises in General Chemistry and Qualitative Analysis.
Prof.
H. G.
Deming
Prof.
S. B.
Arenson
By. Second edition, revised. Pp. xii + 282. (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.; London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1926.) 9s. net.
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Exercises in General Chemistry and Qualitative Analysis . Nature 119, 702 (1927). https://doi.org/10.1038/119702b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/119702b0