A BRIEF REVIEW OF WILHELM OSTWALD'S 

 "GRUNDRISS DER ALLGEMEINEN CHEMIE " 1 



A SINCERE admirer of Professor Ostwald's monumental 

 "Lehrbuch" must regret that the present textbook should 

 have been chosen to present the recent developments of 

 physical chemistry, rather than a second edition of the 

 earlier, larger work. While the present volume is intended, 

 according to the preface, to interest in physical chemistry 

 those as yet unacquainted with the subject, it seems question- 

 able whether this object can best be obtained by cutting away 

 much that renders the larger work such delightful reading; 

 nor does it seem plausible that a non-mathematical mind 

 should grasp a mathematical formula better because the strict 

 proof is omitted as too abstruse, and that the reader who is 

 conversant with calculus should therefore be debarred from 

 this aid to the comprehension. There is no doubt, however, 

 that this little volume gives all the subject-matter proper of 

 the two older volumes, with some additions; condensation 

 has been obtained by employing smaller type, omitting many 

 tables and much purely historical matter, and, finally, by 

 omitting all references to titles of papers, instead of which 

 the year of publication has been inserted in the text. The chap- 

 ters have been rearranged into a very logical sequence, and 

 the new points of view introduced by the hypothesis of os- 

 motic pressure receive a very full and withal very compre- 

 hensible treatment. 



For such as desire a rather hurried glance over a large 

 field, this book can be very well recommended; but it is to 

 be hoped that its presence in the chemist's library will not be 

 supposed to atone for the absence of the "Lehrbuch." 



1 Reprinted from Am. Chem. Journ. 12, 516 (1890). 



