HISTORY OF THE ATOMIC THEORY. 2 1 7 



if we begin with the second column. In other words, the 

 numbers attached to the bases indicate the amount which 

 unites to the acid numbers (or proportions represented by 

 them). 



But we cannot say more of Fischer than that he made 

 plainer Richter's law. 



In 1803, immediately after the last of Richter's periodical 

 publications, but ten years after the publication of Pure 

 Stccchiomctry, appeared the Essai de Statique Chymique 

 of Berthollet.* 



There is no stronger proof of the want of influence of all 

 preceding inquirers on this subject than the existence at this 

 period of Berthollet's essay, and the effects it had on the 

 followers of the science, who could neither have understood 

 nor believed the earlier, when they listened to the later with 

 so much attention. 



In Berthollet's Essai, we find the following sentences. 



Chapter II. 13. " The chemical action of different sub- 

 stances is excited, not only in the ratio of their affinity, but 

 also in the ratio of their quantity; one immediate consequence 

 is, that chemical action diminishes in proportion as saturation 

 advances. 



14. " It also follows, from this law, that a substance which 

 is in solution in a quantity of liquid greater than is necessary, 

 is retained therein by a more powerful action, and that, on 

 the contrary, the superfluous quantity of the liquid is sub- 

 jected more feebly to the affinity of the dissolved substance 

 than is required for solution. It will be seen, therefore, that 

 the general law which I have announced is, in this instance, 

 only modified by the circumstance which limits the quantity 

 of liquid that can exert its action simultaneously." 



Then we have this extraordinary sentence, proving that so 

 far from the subject of the atomic theory being clear, even 

 fc the doctrine of proportion had not made its way. 



^H * The English translation by B. Lambert, 1804, it here quoted. 



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