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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



held to the opinions suggested by his own com- 

 mon-sense. 



In addition to his mental powers and quick 

 perceptions, Liebig's methods greatly conduced 

 to his rapid progress. He saved himself and 

 others a vast deal of time by the invention of 

 good methods in his experiments. Of those he 

 applied, perfected, or invented, the elementary 

 analysis of organic bodies takes, perhaps, the 

 first place, particularly the determination of car- 

 bon and hydrogen. Before the introduction of 

 Liebig's methods, an organic elementary analysis 

 was one of the most difficult tasks of the analytic 

 art, and was only attempted by the greatest mas- 

 ters. Liebig had seen the process in the labo- 

 ratories of Thenard and Gay-Lussac, and had 

 followed their plans. He, of course, mastered 

 the difficulties under their guidance, but he must 

 have found them very troublesome, and still 

 more so the time they consumed. When he be- 

 gan his ardent labors at Giessen, and would fain 

 have made experiments on the carbon, hydrogen, 

 and nitrogen, in all organic bodies, he must have 

 been much impeded by the time and apparatus 

 required. He saw that he must make it a quick 

 and easy process if progress was to be made in 

 organic chemistry. This purely technical task 

 occupied him for years, and he succeeded to a 

 surprising extent. The apparatus was made by 

 degrees so simple and unfailing, that dexterity in 

 mineral analysis was far surpassed. Any chemist 

 was now enabled, especially after the equally ex- 

 peditious method of determining nitrogen had 

 been introduced by Will and Varrentrapp, to 

 make several combustions in a day. 



The simplification of elementary analysis has 

 been of no less importance to organic chemistry 

 than modern methods of transit to commerce. 

 Questions as to the percentage of the component 

 parts of organic bodies could now be readily an- 

 swered, and were no longer a tedious hinderance 

 to the experimentalist. The five-ball apparatus 

 which Liebig, who was himself an expert glass- 

 blower, learned to make out of a few glass tubes, 

 in which the carbon in organic matters was ab- 

 sorbed and weighed as carbonic acid, became the 

 sign and symbol of the Giessen school ; the 

 students wore it on breast-pins and buttons, and 

 it figured under likenesses of Liebig. It has 

 contributed no less to researches into the com- 

 position of organic bodies than good telescopes 

 to viewing the heavens, or good microscopes to 

 the investigation of the minutest atoms. 



Liebig's career as a teacher does not come 

 within the sphere of his scientific achievements, 



but his school is inseparable from his works and 

 from the development of organic chemistry. He 

 had felt the need of higher education, the short- 

 comings of the schools of his day. He found what 

 he wanted at Paris, and he made accessible to all 

 in Germany what he had to thank his good for- 

 tune for through meeting with Alexander von 

 Humboldt. The establishment of the chemical 

 laboratory at Giessen must be considered an 

 " epoch-making " fact of modern times. Liebig 

 thereby ltd chemistry by the shortest route from 

 the professor's chair into the sciences and prac- 

 tical life. How great the activity which prevailed 

 in those chemical halls on the Selterser Berg, 

 how unceasing the labor going on there ! The 

 most important objects were pursued together 

 with the most commonplace, the future practical 

 chemist and the future professor worked side by 

 side, and now and then some chemical bungler 

 among them. All the dialects of Germany, all 

 the tongues of Europe, were mingled together, 

 that of England in one of the halls predominat- 

 ing; yet there was no confusion, every one felt 

 that he had lofty ends in view, he was serving 

 science, he was a pupil of Liebig's. 



And how stimulating was this concourse of 

 aspiring youths under such a master ! For every 

 one in a scientific or experimental difficulty — in 

 chemical distress — he had some good advice, some 

 happy suggestion, to help him on his way and 

 float his craft again. No one who had witnessed 

 these labors, as earnest as they were cheerful, in 

 this chemical beehive on the Lahn, could won- 

 der that at one time every one who aspired to 

 higher education in chemistry thought it neces- 

 sary to make a pilgrimage to Giessen, and the 

 reputation of Liebig's school became so high that 

 it was a recommendation merely to have been 

 there. 



Liebig also deserves admiration for having 

 persisted in his methods of teaching. Like every 

 one who is in advance of his age, he at first met 

 with opposition. Some few professors of chem- 

 istry had seen before that the chemical students 

 of the universities should practise in the labora- 

 tory ; but they were not supported by public 

 opinion, and not strong enough to overcome it. 

 I well remember what my old teacher, Johann 

 Nepomuk von Fuchs, used to tell me of the days 

 when he was Professor of Chemistry at Landshut, 

 about 1820. He tried to keep up a small practi- 

 cal school on the most modest scale, but his col- 

 leagues considered it useless waste of materials 

 and wear and tear of the apparatus, and the few 

 students who attended it were laughed at by their 



