614 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tion upon the electro-negative one " (p. 69). 

 Hence the equality of action and reaction 

 must now be thrown to the resting-place of 

 horror vacui and kindred errors. 



Having reached the end of the memoir 

 without encountering a single scientific re- 

 sult, I felt greatly relieved by the author's 

 modest statement (p. 72) : " I claim to have 

 discovered and demonstrated the same 

 grand geometrical laws which Kepler traced 

 as ruling the planetary system, as prevail- 

 ing also in the microcosms which we call 

 molecules." And the author complacently 

 continues : " I must add that, though many 

 advanced chemists have long expected some 

 great revelation from this source, yet now 

 that a revelation has come, there are few even 

 among the boldest and most original think- 

 ers who will not be startled at the sweeping, 

 in some respects revolutionary, tendency 

 of these developments, with regard to the 

 current theories of the schools and the 

 school-books." 



I confess to have indeed been thorough- 

 ly "startled" to see such a paper as this 

 printed in extenso in the American Chemist; 

 and not much less astonished to find it re- 

 cently (May 27, 1876) partly reprinted in 

 the Engineering and Mining Journal, ac- 

 companied by a highly-laudatory editorial, 

 wherein Dr. T. Sterry Hunt is reported to 

 have expressed the opinion that "Prof. 

 Wurtz has surprised Nature in one of her 

 secrets, and has enunciated a law which is 

 probably as important as the law of the 

 force of gravity." 



It is simply because these high and un- 

 qualified indorsements are likely to give the 

 vagaries of " Geometrical Chemistry " cur- 

 rency in the popular scientific press of the 

 country that I take the trouble to expose 

 the palpable fallacy of the whole fabric. 



The inorganic chemical compounds con- 

 tain oxygen as the most general constituent, 

 while the organic compounds contain as 

 generally carbon. Hence, if we were to 

 mystify some of our chemical colleagues, 

 not very sound in elementary mathematics, 

 we would calculate the densities of all com- 

 pounds by assuming almost any fixed atomic 

 volume for these two elements, and assign- 

 ing the residual volume to the other con- 

 stituents. By a liberal use of arbitrary 



multiples, these residual volumes could then 

 be very readily expressed as cubes (or al- 

 most any other function) of whole numbers 

 with so great an approximation that in- 

 versely the calculated density of the com- 

 pound must be almost identical with any 1 

 of the observed values of the same. Such 

 a process, when presented by a sufficiently 

 funny man in Section Q of the American 

 Association, would be very entertaining ; but 

 when such a thing occupies twenty quarto 

 pages in the American Chemist, and when 

 voluminous extracts thereof in other scien- 

 tific journals are printed as embodying great 

 chemical progress, I feel that American 

 science has been disgraced. 



Prof. Wurtz in the above mystification 

 proves himself not even sufficiently master 

 of arithmetical puns to keep the variations 

 of the positive elements (the above residual) 

 within bounds. A slightly more dexterous 

 use of the convenient arbitrary multiples 

 would have helped him out, and yielded nu- 

 merous new "laws." Thus the hydrogen 

 diameter ranges from 16 to 28, that is, in 

 volume it ranges as the cubes of these num- 

 bers, from 4,096 to 21,952, in proportion of 

 one to five in closely-allied compounds ! In 

 very closely-related compounds of alumin- 

 ium the diameter of aluminium varies from 

 16 to 45, its volume therefore from 4,096 

 to 91,125, or in the proportion of one to 

 twenty-two ! (See pp. 54-57.) 



Space forbids my entering upon a more 

 detailed expose of this crude display of in- 

 determinate analysis. The whole thing is 

 so utterly worthless, so absolutely destitute 

 of every gleam of science, so horridly un- 

 couth even in its verbal exposition, that 

 this short notice is most reluctantly given, 

 simply to protest, in the name of American 

 science, against the filling of our scientific 

 journals with material that exposes us to 

 the ridicule of the scientific world. 



Gl'STAVUS HlNRICHS. 



Iowa City, Iowa, July 21, 1876. 



1 The influence of impurities, etc., is coolly as- 

 cribed to arbitrary variations in atom-diameter and 

 varying multiples in the molecule ; this is done 

 even for minerals and metals! I wonder that Mr. 

 Raymond did not see the absurdity of the whole 

 process. See, for example, "Siderite," p. 82, or in 

 fact any 6ubstance for which more than one density 

 has been used. 



