1884.] On the Chemical Work of Wohler. 481 



deceived previous investigators, afforded to Wohler and Liebig the 

 clue to a labyrinth which led to a veritable treasure-house, and the 

 marvellous insight and rare analytical faculty of these two great 

 men were never more clearly indicated than in the way in which they 

 trod this intricate maze. No fewer than fifteen new bodies were 

 added to the list of chemical compounds, and these were correlated 

 with the same masterly perspicacity that was so strikingly exhibited 

 in the memoir on the radicle of benzoic acid. Some of the greatest 

 triumphs of modern chemistry are seen in the synthesis of organic 

 bodies ; that organic chemistry was about to advance along this line 

 was clearly foreseen by Wohler and Liebig. In opening their 

 account of this, the last great work they did in common, they 

 say :— 



" From this research the philosophy of chemistry will draw the 

 conclusion that the ultimate synthetical formation in our laboratories 

 of all organic bodies, in so far as they are not organised (in so weit 

 sie nicht mehr dem Organismus angehoren) may be regarded as not 

 only probable but certain. Sugar, salicin, morphin, will be artificially 

 obtained. As yet we know nothing of the way by which this result 

 is to be attained, inasmuch as the proximate materials for forming 

 these bodies are unknown ; but we shall know them." 



Henceforth the friends worked but little in common; Liebig's 

 energies were spent in other directions, and Wohler turned his atten- 

 tion chiefly to inorganic chemistry. In concert with Sainte-Claire 

 Deville, he investigated boron and its compounds with aluminium and 

 nitrogen. The readiness with which boron unites with nitrogen, and 

 the mode in which the compound may be decomposed, led Wohler to 

 a conception of the origin of boric acid and borax in the volcanic 

 waters in which they are frequently found. In collaboration with 

 Buff, he discovered the spontaneously inflammable hydride of silicon, 

 the analogue of marsh gas, and thereby laid the foundation-stone of a 

 superstructure which in time to come may be only less imposing 

 than that built up of the compounds of carbon. Many years ago 

 Wollaston noted the presence of lustrous copper-coloured cubes in 

 the slags from iron-blast furnaces which he assumed to be metallic 

 titanium. Wohler proved this substance to be a compound of carbon, 

 nitrogen, and titanium, and showed how it might be obtained. Of 

 all the elements known to the chemist up to the period of Wohler's 

 cessation from work, it may be safely affirmed that there was not one 

 but that had passed through his hands in some form or other, and the 

 number of minerals and meteorites he analysed is legion. In all, he 

 was the author of 275 memoirs and papers ; of these, fifteen were 

 published with Liebig. 



In philosophic contentment, happy in his work, in his home life 

 and in his friendships, Wohler lived out his four-score years and two. 

 He made Gottingen famous as a school of chemistry ; on the com- 

 pletion of the one-and-twentieth year of his connection with the 



