Abstract
THESE two volumes, recently published, are both of unusual interest. The first, by Prof. Ditte, who is well known to English readers by his “Exposé de quelques Propriétés générales des Corps,” may be said to mark a new departure in teaching the chemistry of metals. He points out that the principles of thermochemistry do not merely enable reactions to be explained, but to be predicted, and, on the other hand, when two sets of reactions are simultaneously possible, the laws of dissociation render it possible to rigorously define the conditions of equilibrium which are established in the chemical “systems” under consideration. It is often possible, with the guidance afforded by these laws, to say, in the absence of direct experiment, why one reaction is impossible and another certain to occur; or why a certain reaction begins without difficulty, and is arrested at a definite stage; or why a reaction which takes place readily under certain conditions cannot be effected under others that do not appear to differ greatly from those which were favourable to it. As a pupil of Deville, the author might have been expected to develop, in a treatise such as this, the teaching of his great master, and he has admirably performed his task. The classification of the work is excellent, the metals being first considered collectively, and then in detail with numerous tables of the data and constants which are so frequently required by metallurgists.
Leçons sur les Métaux.
Par Prof. Alfred Ditte (Paris: Dunod, 1891.)
Traité pratique de Chimie Métallurgique.
Par le Baron Hans Jüptner von Jonstorff. Translated from the German by M. Ernest Vlasto. (Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1891.)
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ROBERTS-AUSTEN, W. Leçons sur les Métaux Traité pratique de Chimie Métallurgique. Nature 44, 245–246 (1891). https://doi.org/10.1038/044245a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/044245a0
