ABSTRACT

In a book written, it seems, in the second decade of the present century, for the Home University Library, one finds perhaps the last appearance of the minimal, chemical atomism of Williamson and of the writers of textbooks in the mid-nineteenth century. Meldola considered, correctly as it turned out, that 'the ultimate coalescence of Physics and Chemistry' would be brought about through an interpretation of the Periodic Table. The spectrum consists of bright lines, characteristic of each element; and iron, for example, has a great many lines in its spectrum; therefore, in Liveing's view, it was probably complex. In 1884 Lord Rayleigh described how he had tried to draw the attention of chemists to the second law of thermodynamics; and declared that the success of the kinetic theory-showed that some at least of its fundamental postulates were in harmony with the reality of nature.