MENDELEYEV, DMITRY IVANOVICH

born Feb. 8 [Jan. 27, Old Style], 1834, Tobolsk, Siberia, Russia died Feb. 2 , 1907, St. Petersburg Mendeleyev also spelled Mendeleev Russian chemist who developed the periodic classification of the elements. In his final version of the periodic table (1871) he left gaps, foretelling that they would be filled by elements not then known and predicting the properties of three of those elements. Additional reading The only substantial biography in English is Daniel Q. Posin, Mendeleyev: The Story of a Great Scientist (1948), but it is also a fanciful and romanticized version. Studies of Mendeleyev's scientific work are included in J.R. Partington, A History of Chemistry, vol. 4, ch. 26 (1964), which also gives biographical notes on and estimates of the work of his principal contemporaries, with many references.