# Edward G. Mazurs

Edward G. Mazurs (1894–1983) was a chemist who wrote a history of the periodic system of the chemical elements which is still considered a "classic book on the history of the periodic table". Originally self-published as Types of graphic representation of the periodic system of chemical elements (1957), it was reviewed by the ACS in 1958 as "the most complete survey of the range of human imagination in representing graphically the Mendeleev periodic law."
A revised "centenary" edition covering a full 100 years of periodic tables was republished under the title Graphic Representations of the Periodic System During One Hundred Years in 1974. Mazurs provided a comprehensive analysis and classification of periodic tables, listing and classifying over 700 periodic tables. He recommended Charles Janet's left-step system and suggested that it could be expanded into three dimensions.

## Life and career

Mazurs was born in Latvia, then under Czarist rule. He earned a master's degree at the University of Riga (later the University of Latvia), teaching there after independence as a professor of chemistry, from 1919 to 1940.
Mazurs fled with his wife and son when Latvia was reoccupied by the Soviet Union in 1944 and spent years as a refugee, some of it in a refugee camp in Regensberg, Germany. He immigrated to America in 1949. After working at Argo Corn Products, he eventually obtained a professorship at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California.

## Publications

In a self-published book, Types of Graphic Representation of the Periodic System of the Elements (1957) he listed some 700 images published since 1862, classified under 146 heads. He brought out a greatly expanded version in 1974: Graphic Representations of the Periodic System during One Hundred Years.
Mazurs's books are difficult to use because the references are divided into 146 corresponding sections, and the index refers to the types and not to pages. Nevertheless, his references are the most comprehensive and accurate ever compiled for the period covered. He cited authors writing in at least 24 languages and from fifty countries.
Working before the age of the photocopier, he copied his illustrations by hand and generally brought them up to date by adding elements missing from the original works, and sometimes he changed them radically. He gave 67 references to the modern standard medium long table, but paid it little attention, attributing its origin to Dmitri Mendeleev, who gave only a fragmentary description of it because he disliked interrupted series. Mazurs preferred tables based on electronic structure, notably that of Charles Janet and his own modification of it.

## Papers

His notes and papers are held in the library of the Science History Institute, 315 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106, where they occupy 4 linear feet, and include lantern slides and transparencies of periodic tables which appear in his books.

## Periodic tables

| Year | Creator(s) | Figure numbers & types (1957 edition) |
| 1790 | Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau, Antoine Lavoisier, Claude Louis Berthollet, Antoine François, comte de Fourcroy | 3 Table |
| 1830 | Jean-Baptiste Dumas | 4 Table |
| 1830 | Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner | 5 Table |
| 1840 | Leopold Gmelin | 6 V-shape |
| 1860 | Julius Lothar Meyer | 7 Table |
| 1863 | Alexandre-Émile Béguyer de Chancourtois | 8 Table |
| 1863 | Alexandre-Émile Béguyer de Chancourtois & John Alexander Reina Newlands | 10 Table; 21 Tables of the Laws of Octaves |
| 1864 | William Odling | 11 Table |
| 1865 | John Alexander Reina Newlands | 9 Table; 22 1C1-1 |
| 1867/1869 | Gustavus Detlef Hinrichs | 12 Table |
| 1868/1895 | Julius Lothar Meyer | 13 Table |
| 1869 | Dmitri Mendeleev | 14, 15, 16, 17 Table ; 42 IIC1-1; 53 IIC2-3; 54 IIC2-4; 62 IIC1-1A; 79 IIIC3-5 |
| 1870 | Dmitri Mendeleev | 18, 20, Table; 24, 1C2-1 |
| 1870 | Heinrich Adolph Baumhauer | 29 1B2-4 |
| 1871 | Dmitri Mendeleev | 19 Table; 47 IIC2-1 |
| 1882 | Thomas Bayley | 82 IIIC3-6 |
| 1883 | Heinrich Friedrich Gretschel 1830–1892 & Georg Bornemann, 1855– | 30 1C2-4 |
| 1884 | Ernst Huth | 32 1B2-5 |
| 1885 | Karl Arnold 1853–1929 | 33 1C2-5 |
| 1886 | James Emerson Reynolds 1844–1920 | 44 IICI-2 |
| 1886 | Thomas Carnelley 1854–1890 | 59 IIC2-7 |
| 1887 | Flavian Mikhailovich Flavitskii 1848–1917 | 41 IIBI-1 |
| 1889 | Victor von Richter | 26 1C2-2 |
| 1892 | William T. Preyer | 27 1C2-2B |
| 1892 | Henry Bassett, Sr. | 34 1A3-1; 68 IIIC3-1 |
| 1898 | William Crookes | 43 IIAI-2 |
| 1900 | George F. Horsley | 57 IIC2-5B |
| 1900 | Karl Schirmeisen | 69 IIIA3-2 |
| 1905 | Frank Austin Gooch & Claude Frederic Walker | 70 IIIA3-2A |
| 1905 | Alfred Werner | 75 IIIC3-3 |
| 1906 | George Woodiwiss | 50 IIC2-2 |
| 1910 | J. F. Tocher | 52 IIB2-3 |
| 1911 | Benjamin Kendall Emerson | 45 IIA2-1; 46 IIB2-1 |
| 1911 | Eduard von Stackelberg | 51 IIA2-3 |
| 1911 | Antonius van den Broek | 56 IIC2-5A |
| 1911 | Curt Schmidt | 80 IIIC3-5A |
| 1913 | Johannes Robert Rydberg | 63 IIIB2-1 |
| 1914 | Arthur Alphonzo Blanchard & Frank Bertram Wade | 28 1C2-3 |
| 1914 | Frederick Soddy | 48 IIA2-2 |
| 1915 | Alois Bilecki | 64 IIIA2-2 |
| 1916 | William Draper Harkins & R. E. Hall | 31 1A2-5 |
| 1916 | Hugo Stintzing | 65 IIIA3-1; 66 IIIB3-1 |
| 1918 | J. G. Vogel | 38 1A3-2 |
| 1918 | Curt Schmidt | 55 IIC2-5 |
| 1920 | George Schaltenbrand | 85 IIIA4-1 |
| 1922 | Eugenio Saz | 72 IIIC3-2 |
| 1925 | Andreas von Antropoff | 60 IIC2-7A |
| 1926 | Andreas von Antropoff | 83 IIIC3-6A |
| 1926 | C. J. Monroe & W. D. Turner | 86 IIIB4-1 |
| 1926 | Luigi Rolla & Giorgio Piccardi | 91 IIIC4-2A |
| 1927 | John David Main Smith | 23 1C1-2 |
| 1927 | Charles Janet | 76 IIIC3-4 |
| 1928 | Charles Janet | 67 IIIB3-1C; 71 IIIB3-2; 74 IIIB3-2; 87 IIIB4-1A |
| 1928 | O. J. Stewart | 25 1B2-2 |
| 1930 | Roy Gardner & Arrigo Mazzucchelli | 92 IIIC4-2B |
| 1931 | C. H. Douglas Clark (Cecil Henry) | 90 IIIC4-2 |
| 1932 | F. M. Shemyakin | 36 1C3-1 |
| 1935 | Nicholas Opolonick | 61 IIIB1-1 |
| 1936 | Egon Wiberg 1901–1976 | 58 IIC2-6 |
| 1937 | Emil V. Zmaczynski | 84 IIIC3-6B |
| 1938 | Robert A. Steinberg | 95 IIIC4-3 |
| 1941 | L. Sibaiya | 94 IIIB4-3 |
| 1942 | Friedrich Kipp | 49 IIB2-2 |
| 1943 | G. Haenzel | 93 IIIA4-3 |
| 1948 | George A. Scherer | 73 IIIA3-3 |
| 1948 | David T. Gibson | 88 IIIC4-1 |
| 1949 | G. M. Murashov | 40 1C3-2A |
| 1950 | Frank O. Green & Bernard G. Jackson | 35 1B3-1 |
| 1951 | I. Aucken | 81 IIIA3-6 |
| 1953 | Gil Chaverri Rodríguez | 89 IIIC4-1C |
| 1954 | A.I. Mashentsev | 37 1C3-1A |
| 1955 | Edward G. Mazurs | 77 IIIC3-4C; 78 IIIC3-4B |
| 1956 | Edward G. Mazurs | 39 1C3-2 |