Beschreibung:

MENDELEEV, Dmitri Ivanovich (1834-1907). Sootnoshenie svoystv s atomnym vesom elementov [ Relation of the Properties to the Atomic Weights of the Elements ], offprint from: Zhurnal russkago khimicheskago obshchestva , volume I, parts ii-iii, pp. 60-77. St Petersburg: Press of the Association of Public Utility, 1869. 8° (214 x 140mm). Letterpress tables in the text. (Very light browning, occasional spotting.) Contemporary roan-backed boards (spine rubbed, boards marked, lower hinge cracked). Provenance : early underlinings and annotations -- inscriptions and inkstamps on lower pastedown -- Professor L.T. Kashintsev, Filatov Institute, Odessa (bookplate). FIRST EDITION, THE RARE OFFPRINT ISSUE OF 'THE BASIS OF THE ''PERIODIC LAW'' ' (Grolier Science ). Mendeleev had first investigated the relationship between the valencies of given elements while writing his textbook Osnovy khimii (St Petersburg: 1869-1871). In March 1869 he formulated the periodic law, stating that: elements placed according to the value of their atomic weights present a clear periodicity of properties. Mendeleev first reported his discovery in the paper Opyt sistemy elementov , before presenting it in a more detailed form in the present paper, which was read to the Russian Chemical Society in March 1869, by the editor of their journal, N.A. Menshutkin. While preparing the present paper, Mendeleev developed several variant tables, and through these rearrangements, 'discovered gaps at three points -- between hydrogen and lithium, between fluorine and sodium, and between chlorine and potassium -- and then predicted that these lacunae would be filled by then-unknown elements having atomic weights of approximately 2, 20, and 36 -- that is, by helium, neon, and argon' ( DSB IX, p.289). Sootnoshenie svoystv was published in volume I of Zhurnal in April 1869, of which only 80 copies were issued (cf. Khimiia i zhizi , no.3, March 1969, p.49; volume I of the Zhurnal lists 47 members of the Society in 1868). The present copy is an offprint from the journal, with the collation: π1 (part-title and contents for volume I, parts 2 and 3) [1] 2 2 8 (text, 10 leaves, paginated 59 to 78). These leaves were presumably printed from the standing type, but with the amended signatures '2' on p.63 and '*' on p.65, to replace the signatures of the journal volume, where pp.59-78 are printed on leaves 4/7-6/1 (cf. Grolier Science ). All issues of this paper are rare: only three copies have been recorded at auction since 1975, and all are either the volume of the Zhurnal , or appear to have been extracted from it. Grolier Science 74 (journal issue).