CHEMISTRY IN 1886. 



By H. Carringtox Bolton, Ph. D., 



Professor of Chemistrij in Trinilti College, Hartford. 



GENERAL AND PHYSICAL. 



N'ature and Origin of the Elements. — Mr. William (3rookes, F. R. S., 

 president of the chemical section of the British Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science, gave an address at the Birmingham meeting in 

 September, in which he nndertook with great skill and learning to adapt 

 the doctrine of evolution to the chemical elements. After glancing at 

 the difiiculty of defining an element he noticed the revolt of many phys- 

 icists and chemists against the ordinary acceptation of the term. He 

 next considered the improbability of their eternal self-existence or their 

 origination by chance. He suggested as a remaining alternative their 

 origin by a process of evolution, like that of the heavenly bodies accord- 

 ing to Laplace. In this connection he remarks: "This building up or 

 evolution is above all things not fortuitous ; the variation and devel- 

 opment which we recognize in the universe run along certain fixed lines, 

 which have been preconceived and foreordained. To the careless and 

 hasty eye design and evolution seem antagonistic; the more careful in- 

 quirer sees that evolution, steadily proceeding along an ascending scale 

 of excellence, is the strongest argument in favor of a preconceived 

 plan." Mr. Orookes then shows that in the general array of the ele- 

 ments, as known, a striking approximation is seen to that of the organic 

 world, though he admits this ajiparent analogy must not be strained. 



He then reviews indirect evidences of the decomposition of the so- 

 called elements, taking into consideration the light thrown upon this 

 subject by Front's law and by the researches of Mr. Lockyer in solar 

 spectroscopy. He also reviews the evidence drawn from the distribu- 

 tion and collocation of the elements in the crust of our earth. He gives 

 due consideration to Dr. Carnelly's weighty argument in favor of the 

 compound nature of the so-called elements from their analogy to the 

 compound radicals.* 



* See Smithsonian Eeport for 1885, Chemistry. 



387 



