Conversations on Chemistry

Chemistry comes alive here as a lively conversation between Mrs. B. and her young pupils, Caroline and Emily, who discover that the subject is far more than medicines and mixtures. Through dialogue, experiment, and candid reflection on her own recent studies, the author makes a bold case for teaching science accessibly, especially to beginners and women, while tracing chemistry from its simplest principles to its broadest applications. The lessons move from heat, light, gases, and combustion to hydrogen, sulfur, phosphorus, carbon, metals, acids, salts, and the chemistry of plants and animals. Along the way, Mrs. B. explains the evolution of chemistry from alchemy to a precise science of composition and decomposition, introducing the hidden structure of matter, the nature of chemical attraction, and the difference between cohesion and combination. Vivid demonstrations, from copper and nitric acid to sympathetic ink, lead into Sir Humphry Davy's revolutionary discoveries of potassium, sodium, and other new metallic bases. Practical uses, from the steam engine to agriculture and respiration, reveal chemistry as a vivid, useful, and astonishing key to the workings of nature. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.