AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON PRACTICAL CHEMISTRY AND Qualitative Inorganic Analysis SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR USE IN THE LABORATORIES OF BY FRANK CLOWES, D.Sc. LOND. FELLOW OF THE CHEMICAL SOCIETIES OF LONDON AND BERLIN, PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. THIS little treatise was commenced to supply a course of Practical Chemistry to my own classes. I was encouraged to proceed with it by finding that the want of a sufficiently elementary and explanatory Laboratory Text-book was very widely felt. It has been my aim throughout to give all necessary directions so fully and simply as to reduce to a minimum the amount of assistance required from a teacher. The language employed has been rendered simple and intelligible by avoiding the unnecessary use of scientific terms, and by explaining or paraphrasing in ordinary words any such terms when introduced for the first time. The directions how to work and the description of the preparation and use of apparatus have been given more fully than is usual, since my own experience, confirmed by that of other teachers, convinces me that one of the most serious hindrances to the utility of many of the smaller Text-books on Practical Chemistry is the too great conciseness of the language employed, which frequently renders it unintelligible to the student unless supplemented by copious verbal explanation from the teacher. Whilst making the very desirable amplifications above referred to, the book has been kept within small dimensions, partly by the omission of all such higher instruction as is not required by a student of elementary chemistry, and partly by the insertion of the supplementary or merely explanatory portions in smaller type. I have also thought it best to avoid entering into any lengthy theoretical explanations. The modern teaching of chemistry is in practice very appropriately divided into two departments-namely, theoretical |