Lot 172
  • 172

Mendeleev, Dmitri Ivanovich.

bidding is closed

Description

  • Osnovy khimii [Principles of chemistry]. St Petersburg: Tipografiya tovarishchestva "Obshchestvennaya pol'za", 1869-1871
2 parts in 4 volumes, 8vo (179 x 110mm.), half-titles, wood-engraved illustrations, tables (one folding), contemporary calf-backed cloth, title-page and preliminaries of part 1 bound at the beginning of volume 2, title-page of part 2 bound at the beginning of volume 4, occasional spotting or light soiling, owner's name in ink at head of title-page of part 1, occasional pencil scoring in one volume, volume 3 with later cloth sides

Literature

DSB IX, pp. 286-295; cf. Dibner, Heralds 48 (first German edition)

Catalogue Note

rare first edition of mendeleev's "principles of chemistry", a seminal work in the history of chemistry. Mendeleev's work on Osnovy khimii led him directly in March 1869 to his formulation of the periodic law and table, in which the elements were grouped by atomic weight and grouped according to their chemical and physical properties. He famously used his table to predict accurately the elements which later came to be called gallium, germanium and scandium.

The periodic table is printed on p. [IV] of the preface, printed from the same setting of type as several single-sheet settings, and as in his article Sootnosheniye svoystv atomnym vesom" (see next lot). The folding table, which appears in part 2 (1871), is an improved version of that which appears in the preface to part 1 (1869).