High school chemistry textbook written to encompass five components identified in the work's preface as key to chemistry education: to go beyond imparting information, but also to train in critical scientific investigative thinking; cover the generalizations of the laws of chemistry; demonstrate the application of chemical laws; review the groundwork theories on which the field has been built upon; and reveal "the human side" of science. The volume contains black and white print illustrations including portraits of well-known scientists such as Sir Humphry Davy, Sir William Ramsay, John Dalton, Michael Faraday, Antoine Lavoisier, Henry Cavendish, and Joseph Priestley.

The frontmatter, illustrations, and handwritten appendix of this work have been digitized.