WORKS by G. S. NEWTH, F.I.C., F.C.S. DEMONSTRATOR IN THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE, LONDON. CHEMICAL LECTURE EXPERIMENTS. With 230 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 6s. CHEMICAL ANALYSIS, QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE. With 100 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 6s. 6d. A TEXT-BOOK OF INORGANIC With 155 Illustrations. Crown Svo, 6s. 6d. ELEMENTARY PRACTICAL CHEMISTRY. With 108 Illustrations and 254 Experiments. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. LONDON, NEW YORK, AND BOMBAY. G. S. NEWTH, F.I.C., F.C.S. DEMONSTRATOR IN THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE, LONDON TENTH EDITION (REVISED AND ENLARGED) LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 1903 All rights reserved PREFACE IN drawing up a systematic course of elementary chemical instruction based upon the periodic classification of the elements, whether it be as a course of lectures, or as a text-book, a number of serious difficulties are at once encountered. These possibly are sufficient to account for the fact, that although twenty-five years have elapsed since Mendelejeff published this natural system of classification, the method has not been generally adopted as the basis of English elementary text-books. I have endeavoured to obviate many of these difficulties, while still making the periodic system the foundation upon which this little book is based, by dividing the book into three parts. Part I. contains a brief sketch of the fundamental principles and theories upon which the science of modern chemistry is built. Into this portion of the book I have introduced, necessarily in briefest outlines, some of the more recent developments of the science in a physico-chemical direction, of which it is desirable that the student should gain some knowledge, even early in his career. Part II. consists of the study of the four typical elements, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon, and of their more important compounds. By dissociating these four elements from their position in the periodic system, and treating them separately, the student is early brought into contact with many of the simpler and more familiar portions of the science. Such |