820 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



house (1770-1809) was at the time Professor of Chemistry in the 

 medical department of the University of Pennsylvania, of which 

 he was a graduate. This chair had been held by Dr. James 

 Hutchinson, and on his death, in 1793, Dr. Joseph Priestley, who 

 arrived from England a few months later, was invited to succeed 

 him, but he declined, preferring retirement at Northumberland, 

 and Dr. Woodhouse was chosen instead. He was more of a 

 physician than a chemist, and most of his writings were on 

 medical topics, but he edited Chaptal's Elements of Chemistry 

 and other works. He is said to have been the first to prove by 

 comparative experiments the superiority of anthracite coal from 

 Pennsylvania over bituminous coal from Virginia for intensity 

 and regularity of heating power. 



The first vice-president, Felix Pascalis-Ouvrifere (1750-1840), 

 had an interesting career. He was born in France, where he re- 

 ceived his medical education, but emigrated to Santo Domingo, 

 and while practicing his profession there acquired an extensive 

 knowledge of botany and other branches of natural history. In 

 1793 a revolt among the negroes compelled Pascalis to take 

 refuge in the United States : he settled first in Philadelphia and 

 afterward in ISTew York, where he aided in founding the Linnsean 

 Society of New York. The second vice-president. Dr. John Red- 

 man (1722-1808), was one of the foremost practitioners of medi- 

 cine in Philadelphia, and from 1786 was President of the Phila- 

 delphia College of Physicians. 



Among the most active members of the Philadelphia Chem- 

 ical Society were Priestley, Hare, and Seybert. The ambition of 

 the members is shown by the circumstance that a standing com- 

 mittee in 1802 was prepared to " annalize every mineral produc- 

 tion" sent to them, free of expense. The meeting held October 

 24, 1801, was made memorable by the appointment of a com- 

 mittee for the " discovery of means by which a greater concentra- 

 tion of heat might be obtained for chemical purposes." One of 

 the committee, Robert Hare, then only twenty years of age, re- 

 ported to the society on December 10th his invention of the " hy- 

 drostatic blowpipe." Hare's remarkable paper was printed in a 

 small pamphlet of thirty-four pages with the title. Memoir on the 

 Supply and Application of the Blowpipe, containing an account 

 of a new method of supplying the blowpipe either with common 

 air or oxygen gas. Hare's invention yielded a fruitful harvest of 

 discoveries and alone justified the existence of the first of chem- 

 ical societies ; his subsequent career as Professor of Chemistry in 

 the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania from 1818 

 to 1847 is well known. 



2. The Columbian Chemical Society of Philadelphia was 

 founded in the month of August, 1811, by a " number of persons 



