Comprehensive Organic Reactions in Aqueous Media
Chapter One
INTRODUCTION
Of all the inorganic substances acting in their own proper nature, and
without assistance or combination, water is the most wonderful. If we
think of it as the source of all the changefulness and beauty which we
have seen in clouds; then as the instrument by which the earth we have
contemplated was modeled into symmetry, and its crags chiseled into
grace; then as, in the form of snow, it robes the mountains it has made,
with what transcendent light which we could not have conceived if we
had not seen; then as it exists in the form of torrent, in the iris which
spans it, in the morning mist which rises from it, in the deep crystalline
pools which mirror its hanging shore, in the broad lake and glancing
river; finally, in that which is to all human minds the best emblem of
unwearied, unconquerable power, the wild, various, fantastic, tameless
unity of the sea; ... It is like trying to paint a soul.
Aqueous chemistry is one of the oldest forces of change in the
solar system. It start ... read full excerpt from Comprehensive Organic Reactions in Aqueous Media ebook
