Chemistry, inorganic and organic : with experiments and a comparison of equivalent and molecular formulæ / by Charles Loudon Bloxam.
- Charles Bloxam
- Date:
- 1867
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Chemistry, inorganic and organic : with experiments and a comparison of equivalent and molecular formulæ / by Charles Loudon Bloxam. Source: Wellcome Collection.
8/748
![service in fixing tlie attention of the student, and may assist those who are desirous of performing such experiments for their own instruction, or for that of a class. In explaining chemical changes by equations, I have, as a general rule, employed symbols representing combining weights (or equi- valents), and not atoms, of the elements. Had the work been in- tended for advanced students, I should have hesitated to incur the reproach of obstinate conservatism, or of being behind the chemical spirit of the time, though even then, which of the more advanced systems was to be adopted would have been a very formidable question, for at present the different modes of representing chemical changes are almost as numerous as chemical writers. When the atomic or molecular system of notation affords a clearer explanation, I have endeavoured to give the student the benefit of it, and this of course occurs most frequently in the de]partment of Organic Chemistry, where the elements concerned in the formation of compounds are few, and atomic constitution becomes of greater importance. In such cases I have represented the atoms of elements by the barred symbols (O, &c.), and have adopted essentially the same atomic and molecular formulai as have been employed by my colleague. Professor Miller, in ^he later editions of his Elements of Chemistry.* In general, English weights and measures, and Fahrenheit ther- mometric degrees, have been employed, as conveying more clearly to the beginner the absolute values expressed, since the mental effort of converting what must still be called the continental systems, slight though it be, might have the effect of diverting the attention of the reader from the chemical question under considera- tion. The various calculations have been conducted in the simplest arithmetical form, because the more compendious algebraical expres- sions are not so generally intelligible, and when the principle is once understood, a general algebraical formula for the calculation is easily constructed by the learner. The special attention devoted to Metallurgy and some other * I must confess myself under heavy obligation to Dr Miller's splendid volume on Organic Chemistry, the luminous summaries which it contains having IVeqnently spared me the trouble of referring to the original memoirs.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21496602_0008.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
