AUTHOR'S PREFACE 



TO THE 



SEVENTH EDITION 



Ax the desire of Professor Wohler, I have with pleasure again 

 undertaken the preparation of the present edition of the " Outlines," 

 required by the publishers. Since the appearance of the last edition, 

 however, such great advances have been made in the field of Organic 

 Chemistry, that the book demanded a material transformation to 

 place it -in concordance with the later theoretical views; and the 

 entire rewriting of several sections was necessitated. The principle 

 upon which it is based remains, however, the same as before. It is 

 not intended to be a text-book of Organic Chemistry in the usual 

 acceptation of the term, but a guide in connection with instruction. 

 Hence, facts have been placed in the foreground, and particular 

 attention has been given to the occurrence, the formation, and the 

 characteristic properties of individual compounds. The development 

 of theoretical relations, the demonstration of the connections between 

 the various groups of bodies, and of the general laws which govern 

 them, must be left to the teacher in his oral exercises. 



In the treatment of the individual groups, the guiding principle 

 throughout has been this : Of every homologous series, that com- 

 pound, which is most thoroughly investigated, and which may be 

 considered as a type of the whole series (as, for instance, ethyl alcohol 

 in the series of saturated, monatomic alcohols, acetic acid in the 

 fatty-acid series), is, with its derivatives, considered very exhaust 

 ively; while, for the other members of the same series, only the 

 physical properties of the more important ones are briefly stated, 

 and their characteristic derivatives mentioned. 



Although the book is intended as a guide in first instruction in 

 Organic Chemistry, it stilj contains much more than is required for 



A* 



