(THE 

 LONDON, EDINBURGH, and DUBLIN 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 



AND 



JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



[FIFTH SERIES.] 



JUL Y 1895. 



I. The Fundamental Atomic Laws of Thermochemistry. 

 By William Sutherland *. 



THE data of Thermochemistry have been made the subject 

 of many general suggestions as to relations and laws 

 holding amongst them, but these suggestions have for the 

 most part remained undeveloped and uncoordinated. It is 

 true that Thomsen and Berthelot, to whom we owe the 

 greater part of the splendid accumulation of experimental 

 material, have ever had in view the deduction of generaliza- 

 tions from their data wherewith to enrich chemical philosophy 

 on the side of energetics : thus Berthelot discovered his 

 principle of maximum heat ; and Thomsen marshalled the 

 facts of the thermochemistry of carbon compounds into an 

 orderliness in which he was able to show the operation of 

 some beautifully simple principles. Unfortunately a few 

 invalid assumptions and speculations introduced by Thomsen 

 into his theoretical systemization of carbon thermochemistry 

 seem to have made many chemists afraid that they have 

 involved his whole system in their invalidity. But in reality 

 these assumptions are quite unnecessary, and when banished 

 from Thomson's system leave his discoveries a grand un- 

 obstructed main road into the region of thermochemical law. 

 Thomsen/s generalizations relate to the carbon compounds 



* Communicated by the Author. 

 Phil. Mag. S. 5. Vol. 40. No. 242. July 1895. B 



