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The Principlesof Chemistry

Dmitri Mendeleev · 1903 · retold from the Russian original

Основы химии

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The textbook in which Mendeleev first set out his periodic law, in its last edition from his lifetime. Its Introduction asks what changes when one substance turns into another and what stays the same: the weight on Lavoisier's balance, the elements, the fixed proportions in which they combine.

This is a sample: 1 of 25 chapters.

From the lectures

Left, a burning log becomes a little ash while arrows of smoke carry gases up and away; right, a seed becomes a tree while arrows bring in air through the leaves and water through the roots.
Introduction

Matter Only Changes Form

Thus, under the impression of the phenomena we observe, one can easily form the notion that matter is, as it were, created and lost: whole masses of wood burn away, and only a small quantity of charcoal and ash remains of them; from a seed whose weight is quite insignificant a large tree grows little by little.

Two clear solutions are poured together and a white solid forms; the cloudy mixture is poured into a funnel lined with a paper cone, the clear liquid runs through and the white powder stays on the paper.
Introduction

Mixing and Filtering

4) To show by one more experiment an example of chemical transformations and the applicability of the law of conservation of matter, let us take common salt and lunar caustic, with which, as is known, wounds are cauterised. Both these substances dissolve in water.

A retort with mercury over a furnace, its long bent neck rising into a bell jar standing in a dish of mercury; the air in the bell jar shrinks from 50 to 42 cubic inches while red scales form on the mercury.
Introduction

Twelve Days of Heating Mercury

Here is the famous experiment made by Lavoisier in 1774, which laid an indisputable foundation for an opinion in many respects opposite to Stahl's teaching. Lavoisier poured 4 ounces of pure mercury into a glass retort A.

Fourteen tiles with chemical signs appear one by one: H, C, N, O, Na, Mg, Al, Si, P, S, Cl, K, Ca, Fe; the O tile is largest.
Introduction

The Commonest Fourteen

The simple bodies most widespread in nature are: Hydrogen, H: in water and in organisms. Carbon, C: in organisms, coal and limestones. Nitrogen, N: in the air and in organisms. Oxygen, O: in the air, water and earth; its mass is the greatest. Sodium, Na: in common salt and in many stones.

A + B and C + D joined by a pair of opposite arrows; below, salt dissolving in water and the water evaporating back to salt.
Introduction

Reactions That Go Both Ways

For chemical mechanics it is very important to distinguish reversible reactions from irreversible ones. Substances that can react with one another at a given temperature give bodies that at the same temperature either can or cannot give back the original substances.

Left: light falls on a photographic plate of silver salt that darkens; right: a leaf in sunlight takes in carbonic acid gas and gives off oxygen.
Introduction

Light Can Split and Join

c) Some unstable compounds are also decomposed by the action of light. Photography is based on this property of certain substances (for example, salts of silver).

How it was made

Examples for: a curious adult with school chemistry; add one modern instance per idea, such as a kitchen, a battery, a lab scale or a factory

The source

The lectures retell the Russian text of the 7th edition, St Petersburg 1903 (Internet Archive 20200627_mendeleev_basic). The author died in 1907; the work is in the public domain. The retelling, the drawings and the voice are made by AI and checked against the book by a second model; nothing was edited by hand. How AI is used.

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