1 88 MEMOIR OF DK. DALTON, AND 



I have been able to find no more fitting name for this scien- 

 tific discipline than the word stcechiometry, from aroix'^tov 

 which, in the Greek language, means a something which 

 cannot be divided, and fierQuv which means to find out relative 

 magnitudes." 



Here, then, is a man prepared for the work, one who reso- 

 lutely laboured for many years to find the law by which the 

 elements combine, by " number, weight, and measure." 



We have seen already that many facts were known, and 

 that even reciprocal proportion was almost attained in the 

 diagrams which have been given, and that the most far- 

 sighted chemists saw the natural necessity for a constant 

 proportion in combinations; but when the well-known laws 

 agreed upon by chemists were put together, we see how few 

 G. Morveau's list amounted to. 



Richter did a great deal of work, especially in connection 

 with the chemistry of the metals, but everything was held 

 secondary to his great idea of definite proportionate quantities 

 (bestimmte Grossen verbal tnisse). On the title pages of the 

 various papers or parts of volumes, written after his stcechio- 

 metry, he has preserved as a motto " Uavra (OEOS) fjiBTpw 

 Ktti api^jiiu) Kai ara^fiw ^i^ra^i' (ac). This, from the ' Wisdom 

 of Solomon,' chapter xi., v. 20, is exceedingly appropriate, but 

 the context evidently shows that it was not applied to any 

 such subject ; at the same time it is introduced as a proverb 

 would be, or a well-known universal law coming in aptly to 

 illustrate one particular point to which it bears no more inti- 

 mate relation than to innumerable others. It must, however, 

 be confessed, that this expression is given with a minuteness 

 and fulness which warrants the conclusion that it was not 

 uttered until after many and profound speculations on the 

 order of creation. The sentence is the expression of the cir- 

 cumstances in all their fulness, but like many other sentences 

 of antiquity, the meaning is not clear till the facts have been 

 discovered piece by piece. 



