Download or read book Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, 1844, Vol. 37 (Classic Reprint) written by and published by . This book was released on 2015-07-09 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, 1844, Vol. 37 I propose, in the following Memoir, to offer some observations on the views recently published by Dr Samuel Brown Mr Knox, and Mr Rigg, concerning the compound nature of silicon, nitrogen, and carbon. Before entering, however, at any length on the discussion of these, I would consider, very briefly, some points connected with the general question of the simplicity and unity of matter. The great majority of chemists acknowledge the existence of some 55 simple or elementary substances. These are declared to be simple, not in virtue of any test of simplicity which the chemist has discovered and applied to them, but solely because they resist the decomposing or modifying action of all the forces which are, or at least are known to be, at man's disposal. The chemist, as it were, begins with the globe itself, and breaks it down into some thousand organic and inorganic compounds; these, in their turn, he resolves into some hundred less complex substances; and the latter, last of all, into the 55 bodies which are called simple. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.