

PKEFACE. 



WITH the exception of Professor J. Willard Gibbs's last work, 

 Elementary Principles in Statistical Mechanics* and of his lectures 

 upon Vector Analysis, adapted for use as a text-book by his pupil 

 Dr. E. B. Wilson,*f and printed like the former as a volume of the 

 Yale Bicentennial Series, none of his contributions to mathematical 

 and physical science were published in separate form, but appeared 

 in the transactions of learned societies and in various scientific 

 journals. 



These scattered papers, which constitute the larger and perhaps 

 the more important part of his published work, are here presented 

 in a collected edition, from which, so far as known to the editors, 

 no printed paper has been omitted. A small amount of hitherto 

 unpublished matter has also been included. Permission for the 

 present reprint of the different papers contained in these volumes 

 has in every case been granted by the authorities in charge of the 

 publications in which they originally appeared, a courtesy for which 

 the editors desire here to make due acknowledgment. 



In the arrangement of the papers a grouping by subject has been 

 adopted in preference to a strict chronological order. Within the 

 separate groups, however, the chronological order has in general 

 been preserved. 



The papers on Thermodynamics, which form somewhat more than 

 one half of the whole, constitute the first volume. Among these 

 is the well-known memoir On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous 

 Substances, which has proved to be of such fundamental importance 

 to Physical Chemistry and has been translated into German by 

 Professor Ostwald, and into French by Professor Le Chatelier. 



*" Elementary Principles in Statistical Mechanics developed with especial reference 

 to the Rational Foundation of Thermodynamics." By J. Willard Gibbs. Charles 

 Scribner's Sons, New York. Edwin Arnold, London. 1902. 



f " Vector Analysis, a text-book for the use of students of Mathematics and Physics, 

 founded upon the Lectures of J. Willard Gibbs." By E. B. Wilson. Charles Scribner's 

 Sons, New York. Edwin Arnold, London. 1901. 



