506 



Scheele, bore the characters of the true salts, nor did the acid 

 itself represent the true acid ; it was even confounded by him 

 with that produced by the action of nitric acid on sugar. 



" It is true I did not perceive that sorbic acid is crystal- 

 lizable, which is not to be wondered at, inasmuch as it is deli- 

 quescent ; and, even if crystallized, it would, when exposed, 

 soon return to the syrupy consistence in which I obtained it. 



" Yet the editors of the Annales de Chimie et de Physi- 

 que, who at that time were MM. Gay-Lussac and Arago, 

 observing on Braconnot's experiments, give the following 

 opinion : ' If it be incontestable that malic and sorbic acids are 

 identical, justice demands that we should retain the name of 

 malic acid given by the illustrious Scheele to the acid which 

 he discovered in apples.' This is very nearly tantamount to 

 conveying the opinion that Scheele should be considered the 

 discoverer of sorbic acid ; and if such a mode of reasoning be 

 legitimate, then he who first made wine ought to be considered 

 the discoverer of alcohol, and Noah would bear away honours 

 which were earned by one who lived 3000 years after him. Ad- 

 miration of transcendant talents should not extinguish justice ; 

 the splendour of Scheele's discoveries needs not the additional 

 glimmer of a taper. Scheele attributed to his masked and in- 

 sulated acid properties essentially different from those of the 

 sorbic. Without the aid of his discovery, I must at length 

 have arrived at the knowledge of the sorbic acid, as my expe- 

 riments were made on a different fruit ; and his inquiry, so far 

 from aiding mine, tended greatly to embarrass it, by leading 

 to the belief that the sorbus berries and other fruits contain 

 another acid beside that one which I obtained. In reality, 

 this celebrated chemist failed to discover the acid of either 

 gooseberries, apples, or sorbs ; and as the motive of giving the 

 name of malic acid to the compound obtained by him was, 

 that he procured it with greater facility from apples than 

 gooseberries, the same motive, if there were no other, should 

 cause it to be named sorbic acid, as it is so much more easily 



