Alexander Smith
Published: 2015-06-15
Total Pages: 227
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Excerpt from A Laboratory Outline of General Chemistry No apology is offered for the preparation of another laboratory manual. Each teacher of chemistry sooner or later catches the infection, and finds himself impelled to prepare an outline of his own. There is little material that is original in the present one. The author, therefore, acknowledges his indebtedness to other similar outlines. Ramsay's "Experimental Proofs of Chemical Theory," may be named as the source of some of the quantitative experiments. In selecting, applying, and, to a slight extent, adding to this material, several considerations have been kept in view, although the nature of the case has made it easier to give effect to some of these than to others. The laboratory work is most emphatically not a mechanical part of the course, in which the use of the intelligence of the student plays no part and all thought is reserved for the home or class-room. It is an essential part of the rigorous study of the subject, requiring the employment of the head as well as the hands. An effort has therefore been made to give continuity to the directions by the form in which they are given, and, by questions, to prepare the way for the correlation of the facts which is accomplished in quiz and lecture. This does not mean that the work forms by itself a complete course of study in the subject. On the contrary, certain important topics, such as Gay-Lussac's "Law of Volumes" with the inferences, based on Avogadro's hypothesis, which may be drawn from it, can more fitly be illustrated in the lectures. The admirable experiments of Hofmann often involve numerous details and precautions in manipulation the need of which the beginner could not have foreseen. The apparatus is difficult to handle on the first trial and its provision involves the teacher of a large class in difficulties. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.