§21. Williamson. VIII. The Literature of Science. Vol. 14. The Victorian Age, Part Two. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature: An Encyclopedia in Eighteen Volumes. 1907

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume XIV. The Victorian Age, Part Two.

VIII. The Literature of Science.

§ 21. Williamson.

Alexander Williamson strove to make chemists realise the need of using the Avogadrean molecule as well as the Daltonian atom. By his work on etherification, and by other experimental investigations, as well as by reasoning on his own results and those obtained by other chemists, Williamson demonstrated the fruitfulness of the notion of the molecule. He endeavoured to determine the relative weights of molecules by purely chemical methods. These methods proved to be less satisfactory, and much less general, than the physical method which had been described by Avogadro.