Conversations On Chemistry: In Which the Elements of That Science Are Familiarly Explained and Illustrated by Experiments and 38 Engravings On Wood

by John Lee Comstock, Jane Haldimand Marcet

This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction

370 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

John Lee Comstock (1787-1858) was an American surgeon and educator, who served as a surgeon in the War of 1812. Following the war, Comstock produced numerous books on science, including works on botany, chemistry, mineralogy, natural history and physiology, targeting schools and general audiences, his books were widely used.

Reviews

[notgettingenough · Rating 4 out of 5]

My career as a scientific investigator ended when I was five.

I'd discovered that if you scratch your skin with your fingernail, it goes white and then if you lick it - or otherwise apply water - the scratch will disappear. I thought this was pretty interesting and I wanted to explore the idea more. I looked at the car. I got my metal cap gun. Just don't say a thing, okay? I did a pretty good job of ruining the paintwork, confident in the idea I was merely going to wash all those scratches away.

Don't ask what happened when my parents found out. Suffice to say, the aftermath of the Heidi incident http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/... was a pat on the head and extra dessert by comparison.

Post-grad chemists, I gather, learn that in fact at least 85% of what they do for the rest of their lives will fail. I had an early one out of one, a hundred percent lesson.

You might think it is weird that I wanted to be a saint when I grew up, but honestly, being boiled in oil or eaten by cannibals just seemed so much more - well, civilised - that what happens to intrepid scientists.

You won't have heard of Jane Marcet. Female, you see. But maybe the most important, inspirational writer in education in the late eighteenth and then nineteenth centuries. She made Faraday what he was. Or so he later said. Here is both a discussion of her and a link to an online version of this book:

http://www.rsc.org/images/Woman%20tha...

[Gordon Clason · Rating 1 out of 5]

There is no book here

This thing has no text. There is an introduction, then a table of contents, then an index, and that's all.

[Madalene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty interesting - socratic method style of writing on the chemistry known at this time in history. If you miss your chemistry class, you'll enjoy her experiments proving the basic chemistry that was just starting to be known, and how to proceed with asking questions. They had far fewer elements then, but most of the experiments would still hold true.