prepared and edited by the distinguished scientist Dr. Wilhelm Ostwald. I have incorporated with the present issue the substance of the paragraphs which he introduced into my original text; these are indicated by the sign ¶
In preparing the following pages for the press, I have to acknowledge, as on previous occasions, the help of several friends and correspondents. Amongst these I specially name Mr. J. Scott Taylor, many of whose suggestions have been incorporated in the text, and also Dr. A. P. Laurie, my successor in the chair of Chemistry in the Royal Academy of Arts.
Of recent years the literature dealing with the subjects to which the present handbook is devoted has greatly increased. Several of the volumes named in my 'Bibliographical Notes' are of sterling merit and contain original material of no little importance. But I am bound to confess that I have met with several disappointments when searching for records of new facts in recent dictionary articles, reports of lectures, and treatises. On perusal a familiar note seemed sometimes to be struck; and I ultimately identified not a little of the material as my own. I will not dwell on this matter; it is indeed some consolation to feel that such transferences from my pages would not have taken place had not the paragraphs and tables and comments been deemed of some value. But I trust that I myself shall not be thought guilty of plagiarism because in 1914 I reprint something, say a table or a classification, which I published in 1890, but which appeared ten years or more later as having been
