Finally let's look at the first transition series. Here are a group of metals which
display colours in their componds. They have excited chemists since their discovery, and
still prove a source of considerable delight. The elements have a valence d shell, and this
accounts for their colours and their versatile chemistry. The nature of the valence
electrons is such as to give a gradual change to a variety of properties as the series is
traversed, although there are some discontinuities. Look at the graphs of the |molar@volume|\|melting@point|\|electronegativity|\|third@ionization@energy|\for the
series.\When you return to the Interactive Periodic Table why not plot some of the other
properties in the database as well to see whether these show similar trends?
