24: ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVEK 



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elaborated in the liver, by Strecker. And if the above discoveries should 

 strike you at first sight rather as curious than practically useful, I would 

 remark, that they afford reasonable ground for hope, that the production of 

 some of those principles of high medicinal or economical value, which Nature 

 has sparingly provided, or at least limited to certain districts or climates, may 

 lie within the compass of the chemist's skill. If quinine, for instance, to which 

 the Peruvian bark owes its efficacy, be, as would appear from recent 

 researches, a modified condition of ammonia, why may not a Hofmann be able 

 to produce it for us from its elements, as he has already done so many other 

 alkaloids of similar constitution ? And thus, whilst the progress of civilization, 

 and the development of the chemical arts, are accelerating the consumption 

 of those articles, which kind Nature has either been storing up for the uses of 

 man during a vast succession of antecedent ages, or else is at present elabo- 

 rating for us in that limited area, within which alone the conditions would 

 seem to be such as to admit of their production, we are encouraged to hope 

 that Science may make good the loss she has contributed to create, by herself 

 inventing artificial modes of obtaining these necessary materials. In this case 

 we need not so much regard the exhaustion of our collieries, although Nature 

 appears to have provided no means for replenishing them ; nor even be con- 

 cerned at the rapid destruction of the trees which yield the Peruvian bark, 

 limited though they be to a very narrow zone, and to a certain definite eleva- 

 tion on either side of the equator. Already, indeed, chemistry has given token 

 of her powers, by threatening to alter the course of commerce, and to reverse 

 the tide of human industry. Thus she has discovered, it is said, a substitute 

 for the cochineal insect, in a beautiful dye producible from guano. She has 

 shown, that our supply of animal food might be obtained at a cheaper rate 

 from the antipodes, by simply boiling down the juices of the flesh of cattle 

 now wasted and thrown aside in those countries, and importing the extract 

 in a state ot concentration. She has pointed out, that one of the earths which 

 constitute the principal material of our globe contains a metal, as light as glass, 

 as malleable and ductile as copper, and as little liable to rust as silver ; thus 

 possessing properties so valuable, that when means have been found of 

 separating it economically from its ore, it will be capable of superseding the 

 metals in common use, and thus rendering metallurgy an employment, not 

 of certain districts only, but of every part of the earth to which science and 

 civilization have penetrated. 



AGRICULTURAL IMPROVEMENTS. 



And may I not also say, that she has contributed materially towards the 

 advancement of those arts in which an agricultural county like this is especially 

 interested ? Who has not heard of the work of Baron Liebig, which, at the 

 time of its first appearance, made such a sensation, and stirred up the dor- 

 mant energies of the agricultural public, not less thoroughly than the subsoil 

 plough, of which he explained the advantages, elicited the latent treasures of 

 the land ? It is well known that a controversy has been going on for some 

 time past, between this distinguished foreigner and certain experimental agri- 

 culturists of England, with regard to the principles upon which the manur- 



