RECENT PROGRESS IN CHEMISTRY. 523 



knowledge of the rate of his clock, which is kept under as uniform 

 conditions of temperature and moisture as possible. There must be 

 something radically wrong, either with the observer or his equipment, 

 if he can not give the time of noon within a very few tenths of a 

 second. 



+-+ 



EECENT PEOGEESS IN CHEMISTEY * 



Br H. CAKKINGTON BOLTON, Ph. D., 



PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY, TRINITY COLLEGE, HARTFORD. 



TO many intelligent and cultivated persons not specifically in- 

 structed in chemistry, this word recalls confused memories of 

 colored liquids, glistening crystals, dazzling flames, suffocating fumes, 

 intolerable odors, startling explosions, and a chaos of mystifying ex- 

 periments, the interest in which is proportional to the danger supposed 

 to attend their exhibition. Further reminiscences are of many sin- 

 gular objects in wood, metal, glass, and earthenware, of flasks and 

 funnels, of retorts and condensers, furnaces and crucibles, together 

 with bottles innumerable filled with solids, liquids, and gases, the whole 

 paraphernalia connected by glass tubes of eccentric curves, and dis- 

 played in inextricable confusion and meaningless array. Behind this 

 chaos arise vague memories of one discoursing learnedly in a polysyl- 

 labic jargon, and attempting to explain the unusual phenomena by the 

 aid of abstruse hypotheses, but utterly failing to remove the sensations 

 of awe and of mystery bordering on the supernatural which overwhelm 

 the hearer impressions that have clung to chemistry ever since its 

 entanglement with the superstitions of alchemy, astrology, and the 

 " black art." 



Persons who undertake to gain through chemical literature a knowl- 

 edge of what chemists are doing in and for the world encounter a dis- 

 couraging nomenclature which repels them by its apparent intricacy 

 and its polysyllabic character. Their opinion of the terminology of 

 an exact science is not enhanced when they learn that "black-lead" 

 contains no lead, " copperas " contains no copper, "mosaic gold "no 

 gold, and " German silver " no silver ; that " carbolic acid " is not an 

 acid, " oil of vitriol " is not an oil, that olive-oil is a " salt," but "rock- 

 oil " is neither an oil nor a salt ; that some sugars are alcohols, and 

 some kinds of wax are etfcers ; that " cream of tartar " has nothing in 

 common with cream, "milk of lime " with milk, " butter of antimony " 

 with butter, " sugar of lead " with sugar, nor " liver of sulphur " with 

 the animal organ from which it was named. 



Eeaders of chemical writings sometimes fail to appreciate the ad- 

 vantages of styling borax " di-meta-borate of sodium," or of calling 



* From an address read before the New York Academy of Sciences, March 15, 1886. 

 Revised by the author. 



