[Arkcon]

Hey guys.  I'm looking for a chemistry book for kids I read many years ago in my hometown's public library. It would probably have been written in the mid 1960's to early 1970's.   It had some experiments in it that were just incredible, in their topic, complexity, innovation and, most of all, complete disregard for a child's safety. You know, the sort of book you never find these days, as it completely lacks the much more important topics, like hand-holding, tree-hugging and insuring everyone feels good about themselves, despite results.  OK, that last comment is a little harsh, consider it a little bit of hyperbole for amusement's sake.

I don't know the title or authors, but I'd recognize the book if I saw it.  That doesn't help you guys, of course, but the general question is, where would you go to browse old books like this?

I'll give you guys some of the content of the book, in case it rings a bell for someone.  First off, it contained a subset of Feigl's spot tests for some elements.  Now that was a fascinating topic for me as a kid, despite the fact that it was useless.  I didn't have any real need to identify nickel salts, for example, and couldn't possibly have found dimethylgloxime anyway, but I loved reading this part.  As a matter of fact, I recently bought a beat up Fifth Edition of Feigl, just to have it.  In these days of flame and ICP analysis, these tests are outdated, except perhaps for these forums, but I like having it.  I don't like information dying.

Another topic was paper chromatography.  Not the simplistic stuff done by high schools, but a real, careful, step-by-step procedure, involving ruled lines and other serious treatments of the procedure, more like what I'd seen people do when spotting numerous pharmaceuticals on a TLC plate at work, so you can see why I'm interested in this procedure I only vaguely remember -- it might be topical for me, even today.  The book even suggested do the procedure again, not following the procedure carefully at specific points, so as to see the effect on your results.  Things like, "deliberately leaving dirty or greasy fingerprints on the blotting paper", or "omit the ruled line and just try to prove after the fact which spot went where".

There was this quick procedure for making an electric furnace.  Basically, you'd take the resistance wire from a toaster, and wrap it around a porcelain crucible.  You'd embed the crucible in vermiculite in a ceramic flowerpot, and wire the resistance wire to two bolts you'd protrude through holes you'd drilled in the side of the flower pot.  You'd plug a adapter into those two prongs and the other end into the house current.    Such adapters were common back in the '60's, I'd seen them in appliances back then.  You can see why this book is not left lying around where kids can find it anymore.

There was a procedure for extracting silver from photographic wastes.  I read this one over and over as well.  Part of the procedure involved suspending the silver containing wastes in conc. NaOH, and boiling them, while adding small amounts of sucrose, periodically.  Eventually, you'd reduce the silver to a heavy grey precipitate of silver oxide in a brown liquid, although I don't know what the purpose of the sucrose is.  I'd need the book, so I could look up in the references, to see where the book got this procedure from.  The topic of using sugar in analytical chemistry has even come up here, on these boards.  See here, http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=22233.0  So, I wish I did have access to this book for it's references.

Also there was what can only be described as the weirdest electrochemical cell I'd even seen.  It involved platinum electrodes, coated with platinum black, the usual salt bridge, and I don't reall what was in one half-cell, but in the other one, an emulsion made of water, molasses and living yeast cells.  If I recall correctly, and this experiment is real sketchy in my mind, the fermentation provided the potential, whether it was the break down fermentation products, or if this cell was somehow tapping into the NADH produced by yeast when they ferment I don't know.  Again, I'd need to see the book and it's references.

There's probably a lot more in this book that I've forgotten, because I didn't understand the topics back then.  At any rate, I'm hoping the gang here can offer some help.  If nothing else, you've all discovered what a freak I am, and know to question my answers a little bit.

[enahs]

That was a long post. I did not read it all.


I sent you a personal message.


*edit*

Ok, I lied, it says you have blocked my personal message. I guess you block all? Anyway. E-mail me.

[Borek]

I though about The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments, but it doesn't fit - different subjects covered.

Banned from libraries, but available in pdf (if you know how to find it).

[AWK]

The other one is:
Chemical Magic: Chemistry Demonstrations
from 1959

[Arkcon]

I have The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments in PDF format, I acquired it -- creatively.   I remember that one from my grammar school days too.  But no, that's not it.  The book I'm looking for was less colorful than 'The Golden Book', more like a high school text than a grammar school text. It had chapters, and there were problems at the end of the chapters. 

Example: At the end of the chapter that contained Feigl's spot tests, they suggested you check the small pebbles that accumulate on rooftops for meteoric origin, based on their greater iridium content vs. earth rocks.  And I was so confused, they never mentioned Feigl's spot test for iridium in the chapter.  They did say in the chapter, that no diligent student would accept the spot tests as is, and would of course, seek out Feigl's for a through explanation.  But I couldn't do that as a kid, so I was just left wondering.

I've been hitting my public library for several months now, they have book sales every 1st of the month and sell other unwanted books daily.  I have seen many of my old favorites for sale, but I think this one is already gone.  So many good books I've bought -- my current 5th Edition of Feigl's -- $2. Gotta stop reading that until I can have it rebound, it's spine is split, and I don't want to lose pages.   My 71th edition of the CRC -- $18.  So what are they keeping in the stacks?  "The Beginners Guide to Crystals"  with all their supposed New Age curing properties, filed under geology.  And I cry a  little inside.   

I rack my brain daily more and more, what was the title? Was it something simple, like, "Experiments in Chemistry"? Maybe. I've got an idea of the cover art, hazily in my mind, it was a line drawing of a flask and a test tube and maybe a beaker, and where they intersected, the drawing had solid colors, orange and blue, like those modern art pieces made of intersecting lines.  Or is my memory playing tricks on me?  I don't know.  It's been 25 years, after all.

I borrowed it from my library again and again, often with the another book that was shelved next to it "Test Tubes and Beakers" by E. H. Coulson, A. E. J. Trinder, and Aaron E. Klein.  That one is still in the children's room, and I wrote down it's Dewey decimal number.  But that's practically useless, Dewey Decimal numbers aren't unique like Library of Congress numbers (so they told me in college.)

Gah.  What is the screaming like a madman emoticon?  So many topics I read in that old book, that actually come up, here, on these boards in particular.  And where is it now, brushed aside for new age crap.  How many times did I burn and stain my hands as a junior high student in my basement laboratory, I don't know.  These kids today, why I tell you, in my day ... i oughta ... and get off my lawn.

Anyway Borek, it was you who freshened thoughts of my childhood with your thread over here:  http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=22267.0

[Arkcon]

The other one is:
Chemical Magic: Chemistry Demonstrations
from 1959

I will check into that one.  There might be an author in common with what I'm looking for, and online sites may have related books, and I just might get lucky.

[Borek]

Anyway Borek, it was you who freshened thoughts of my childhood with your thread over here:  http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=22267.0

Oops, I did it again

[Arkcon]

I may be getting a little bit closer to finding the book I want.  By searching for some of the experiments I remember in the Science Fair Project Index for 1960-1972, I was able to find some references to search for on Google.  A couple of them do show up on Amazon or other, "antique" book sites, but I haven't seen a cover photo or scanned page to verify it's what I want.  At least I can use the author's names.  If anyone has a better source to search this info on, I'd like to try it:

Sienko, M.J & Plane, R. A
Experimental Chemistry, 3rd Ed, 654 p
New York, McGraw Hill, 1966

*probably not it, seems too thick for a kid's book, more like a college text book.  Yet the title and authors seem familiar, somehow.

Woodburn, J.H
Excursions into Chemistry, 145 p.
Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1965

*now this one seems a little thin, but the title, also vaguely familiar

Goran, M. H
Experimental Chemistry for Boys, 120 p
New York, J F.F. Rider, 1961

*I don't think that's a title I would have carried around in the late '70's.  That's a little too sexist, even for then.  Maybe that author wrote other books 'tho.

Gray, C. A.
Explorations in Chemistry: over 150 experiments, 221 p
New York, Datton, 1965

*Don't think that's the title.  But the number of pages, seems a little more like it, compared to the others on this list