312 PROCEEDINGS OP THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



Heinrich Rose died at Berlin, on the 28th of January last. Nearly- 

 half a century of Professor Rose's life was devoted to the unremitted 

 and successful cultivation of pure science. In attempting to form an 

 opinion of any one scientific work so long ago completed, we find a 

 difficulty in representing to ourselves the circumstances under which it 

 was composed, — in rightly apprehending the state of science at the 

 time. The difficulty is still greater of forming a correct idea of what 

 would have been the present state of chemical science, had labors like 

 those of Rose, on the most varied subjects, and extending through a 

 long lifetime, never been undertaken. Few of these works led to great 

 or brilliant discoveries ; most of them resulted in those gradual additions 

 to knowledge which necessarily follow a patient and well-directed course 

 of inquiry. But it is precisely to such labors, which have prepared the 

 way and the age for the reception of great truths, that science is in the 

 end indebted for their discovery. 



Heinrich Rose was born at Berlin on the 6th of August, 1795 ; con- 

 sequently, at his death he had not completed his sixty-ninth year. His 

 father and grandfather were apothecaries and chemists in Berlin ; the 

 latter a man of considerable reputation, and the discoverer of the 

 fusible alloy which goes by the name of Rose's Metal. In the discourse 

 which H. Rose delivered before the Berlin Academy, in memory of 

 Berzeiius, he tells us : "I had the good fortune in my youth to assist 

 the celebrated Klaproth in his chemical operations, but only in the last 

 years of his life, in the summer of 1816, when his labors were inter- 

 rupted by frequent and severe illness." 



In 1819 Rose went to Stockholm, and worked for a year and a half 

 in the laboratory of Berzeiius. 



In 1823 he was appointed Professor of Chemistry in the University 

 of Berlin ; and he retained and fulfilled the duties of this station until 

 his death. 



The writings of Rose consist of his Treatise on Analytical Chemistry, 

 and of a very great number of papers published at first in Gilbert's, 

 and then in PoggendorfF's Annals. His Analytical Chemistry is the 

 work by which he is best known. Without claiming to be a treatise 

 upon the theory or the operations of chemistry in general, it includes 

 them both, so far as they are required for the purposes of analysis. 

 From its precision and completeness it not only superseded all the 

 earlier works on this subject, but even caused them to be forgotten. 

 Of his papers, some are single essays, devoted to special points of 



