CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 215 



tation of so-called mineral and organic compounds, one particular se- 

 quence of symbols being habitually employed in representing the com- 

 pounds of carbon, and an entirely different sequence of symbols in 

 representing the more or less analogous compounds of all other elements. 

 Now that organic and mineral chemistry are properly regarded as forming 

 one continuous whole, a conclusion to which C'olbe's researches on 

 sulphureted organic bodies have largely contributed, it is high time 

 that such relics of the ancient superstition, that organic and mineral 

 chemistry were essentially different from one another, should be done 

 away with. Although during the past year the direct advance of that 

 crucial organic chemistry, the suithesis of natural organic bodies, has not 

 been striking; yet, on the other hand, its indirect advance has, I submit, 

 been very considerable. Several of the artificially produced organic 

 compounds at first thought to be identical with those of natural origin, 

 have proved to be, as it is well known, not identical, but only isomeric 

 therewith. Hence, redder pour^mieux sauter, chemists have been 

 stepping back a little to examine more intimately the construction both 

 of natural organic bodies and of their artificial isomers. The S}nthetic 

 power having been allowed of putting the works together in almost any 

 desired way, it is yet necessary, in order to construct some particular bi- 

 ological product, to first learn the way in which its constituent bricks 

 h .ve been naturally put together. We accordingly find that the study of 

 isomerism, or what comes to the same thing, the study of the intimate 

 construction of bodies, is assuming an importance never before accorded 

 to it. Isomerism is, in fact, the chemical problem of the day; and con- 

 currently with its rapidly advancing solution, through the varied en- 

 deavors "of many toorkers, will be the advance in rational organic syn- 

 thesis. It is curious to note the oscillation of opinion in reference to this 

 subject. Twenty years ago, the molecular constitution of bodies was per- 

 ceived by a. special instinct, simultaneously with or even prior to the estab- 

 lishment of their molecular weights. Then came an interval of scepticism, 

 when the intimate constitution of bodies was maintained to be not only 

 unknown, but unknowable. Now, we have a period of temperate reac- 

 tion, not recognizing the descried knowledge as unallowable, but only as 

 diflicult o:' ailowment. And in this, as in many other instances, we find 

 evidence of the healthier state of mind in which now more perhaps than 

 ever the first principles of chemical philosophy are explored. Specula- 

 tion, indeed, is not less rife, and scarcely less esteemed than formerly, but 

 it is now seldom or never mistaken for ascertained truth. Scepticism 

 indeed still prevails; not, however, the barren scepticism of contentment, 

 but the ferdie scepticism which aspires to greater and greater certainty 

 of knowledge. Chemical science is advancing, I believe, not only more 

 rapidly, but upon a surer basis than heretofore; and while, with every 

 advance, the prospect widens before our eyes, so that we become almost 

 alarmed at contemplating what those who come^ after us will have to 

 learn, we console ourselves with the determination that their labor of 

 unlearning shall be as little as possible far less, we hope, than what 

 we in our time have had to experience. 



THE NEW METALS. 



The new metal Indium found in the zinc-blend of Fryberg, by means 

 of the spectroscope, is distinguished by having a spectrum consisting of 



