Abstract
PROF. RICHARD J. MEYER, having reached his seventieth year, has recently resigned his position as editor-in-chief of the eighth edition of “Gmelins Handbuch der anorganischen Chemie”. His name as a research worker in the field of the rare earths, as an authority on the chemistry of scandium, and as a member of the International Commission on Atomic Weights is well enough known, but there can be no doubt that for many years to come his name will be especially honoured in connexion with the editorship of the new “Gmelin”. This handbook, in its seven previous editions, had been valued by generations of chemists as a most comprehensive reference book on inorganic chemistry, but little was done to help the reader to winnow the chaff from the wheat. When, in 1921, the German Chemical Society took over the sponsorship of the eighth edition and entrusted it to the care of Prof. Meyer, it was decided to introduce, without sacrificing the completeness of the references, not only the necessary criticism, but also to give due prominence to the role which physico-chemical considerations now play in questions of inorganic chemistry. Since the last edition, in 1906, the number of publications to be considered has enormously increased; and as the German Chemical Society wished the term ‘inorganic chemistry’ to be understood in its widest sense, thus including material valuable also for the neighbouring sciences of metallurgy, mineralogy, geology and physics, it was obvious that practically a new work would have to be written, on such an ambitious scale that publication would only be possible if substantial financial assistance were forthcoming from the chemical industry in Germany.
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” Gmelins Handbuch der anorganischen Chemie”. Nature 137, 424 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/137424a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/137424a0