19th century chemistry online

[Polverone]

From lurking here it seems that many have at least a passing interest in the chemical methods of "ye olden days." I have personally scanned the 2000+ pages of James Sheridan Muspratt's "Chemistry as Applied to the Arts and Manufactures" and made it available at

http://bcis.pacificu.edu/~polverone/muspratt.html

So if you're interested in chemical techniques from the Victorian era - iodine from seaweed, phosphorus from bones, and so much more - come take a gander. It's cheaper and faster than ordering from Lindsay's technical books. And, as far as I know, this is the only source for this book apart from visiting a library that happens to have a copy.
19th century digital boy

[Osmium]

How big is it? 2000x200kB = 400MB? Any plans to make it available for download?
I'm not fat just horizontally disproportionate.

[UTFSE]

this is just the sort of ref that has become invalauble as historical (or modern basis) for OTC prep.

this type of ref is fast disappearing from the few libraries that have held on to them over the years.

so you do good!!!
OTEECEE & meeeee!!!!

[UTFSE]

u do better than good. I did not notice that you sir Polverone are the originator of the site that houses this fine "olden chimique". this should really be a value to many aspiring chemysts. you are and remain a gentleman and scholar.
OTEECEE & meeeee!!!!

[Polverone]

You can easily download the whole book by pointing an offline browser at the top index file and grabbing it all. Hopefully not too many people will do this all at once, because it's a (normally) lightly loaded academic server with only a single T1 servicing it. I am also willing to make the book available on CD-ROM (either with the Web images or the larger original scans) for a modest fee, but I did not mention it earlier because A) I didn't want to appear to be spamming; this is a hobby, not a moneymaker and B) I imagine that many of the Hive's inhabitants would be adverse to making available the necessary information for a transfer of physical items such as CD-ROMs.

Thank you for the compliments. I have greatly enjoyed the Hive and Rhodium's site for chemical ingenuity with limited resources. I will now return to lurking until I again have something meaningful to say.
19th century digital boy

[carboxyl]

thanks for posting that piece it is super-cool!  
My brain should be a Schedule 1 organ.

[Mountain_Girl]

Good job Polverone, old boy!

Really enjoy that poetic 19th century english, like this bit on chloroform:

"When inhaled from a sponge or handkerchief, it very soon produces insensibility - indeed a kind of coma.
If too sparingly or timidly applied, the effect is often arrested at a stage of excitement similar to that produced by inspiring nitrous oxide; but not being a gas, it may be held so near the mouth on a pledget of linen, and such a quantity administered that the recipient is carried beyond stimulation into a complete lethargy."

[weedar]

Why not use some OCR software to scan the pictures into
textfiles instead?It'll save alot of space,and the web-server
won't be so stressed..

Just a thought.Good work Polverone!

Weedar
Weedar contains 2,4-D dimethylamine salt,apparently

[Dazza]

.. that's a really interesting read. I agree with weedar. you should OCR it

[Elementary]

The quality of the scans at the moment is too poor for OCR, I have already tried.

The book needs to be scanned at aboout 200dpi using lineart (b&w). This would remove all that grey in the background and allow an OCR to get to work.

EDIT : I really appreciate the time you've put into scanning this book, it is a great read, thank-you !
I've got nothing to do today but smile !

[Polverone]

When I began scanning I did not have access to OCR software. Now I have a pretty good OCR package (Abbyy Finereader) but I'm not sure it's up to the task. It doesn't deal terribly well with chemical formulae; I'm not sure any OCR package does. Besides which I have a perfectionistic streak and (as mentioned on the site) I did *not* want to proofread and manually correct each of those pages after scanning.

My original scans were in 150 DPI grayscale to save space, since I never thought I'd OCR it (the images on the web are even smaller to save bandwidth).

This is a relatively rare old book, only one copy in the library, so I couldn't do the easy but destructive thing and slice the binding off and give it to a sheet-fed scanner. I had to manually scan each page on a flatbed. This was less destructive but still rather stressful to the 140 year old book. It also took a very long time and was one of the most tedious things I have ever done. It's really given me pause when considering my tentative 3rd edition Vogel's scanning project...

I am going to save my original 150 DPI scans of this book and hope that superior future OCR software can do something with them. But if it's going to be rescanned at higher resolution and then OCR'd I don't think I'm going to be the one doing it.
19th century digital boy

[humidbeing]

Cool, Isn't polverone the italian name for home made
black powder?
CG I miss you sweety, I really do.

[weedar]

Since we all now have access to the pages,we could share
the workload of typing the text from the pictures?1 bee
per page or something?  

Weedar
Weedar contains 2,4-D dimethylamine salt,apparently

[humidbeing]

Time to get one of them retorts! If just for real old
 times sake.
CG I miss you sweety, I really do.

[IAttendChurch]

Jesus Christ! Bee Bless you Son!!! May Bee Grant you all your dreams!

This is the stuff you can't get no mo!!
thank you sincerely!

heh, friends?       
Our Father Hello To The Bee Thy Name. A'Bee(Plural)