36 Synthetical Chemistry. [ Jan., 
present state of his knowledge and attainments in this branch of 
chemical science that we now propose to direct attention. 
When we compared the analytical and synthetical experience of 
our investigators with that of an ordinary person taking to pieces 
and reconstructing a well-known puzzle, we said that the simile is 
imperfect, for the power in man to build up organic substances is 
not the immediate sequel to his analytical experience. “The pulling 
to pieces of these substances,” says Wanklyn, “is a matter of very 
little difficulty : more than fifty years ago chemists could do that— 
but how to put the pieces together again is a much more difficult 
task. Sugar consists of 72 parts by weight of carbon, 11 parts of 
hydrogen, and 88 parts of oxygen. We may bring together carbon, 
hydrogen, and oxygen in these proportions, and shake them up 
together, or heat them, or cool them, and yet we shall never get 
them to combine so as to form sugar. Alcohol consists of 24 parts 
of carbon, 6 parts of hydrogen, and 16 parts of oxygen, but no 
alcohol ever results from making such a mixture. Neither sugar 
nor alcohol can exist at the temperature to which it is requisite to 
raise our mixture of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, in order to get 
chemical action to set in. At ordinary temperatures the organic 
elements will not enter into combination, whilst at high tempera- 
tures they combine it is true, but yield comparatively very few 
compounds.” 
That the chemist has, however, been able, by a series of 
synthetical operations, to build up alcohol—a product which pre- 
viously nature alone was able to furnish—vwill be seen presently ; 
and not alone has he succeeded in fabricating this organic material, 
but many others, both in the plant and animal realm, the chief of 
these being oxalic acid, resembling that extracted from the common 
wood sorrel; acetic ether, the flavouring substance of certain wines 
(consequently the product of the grape-plant) ; amylic and butyric 
ether, the essences respectively of the pear and pineapple, in the 
vegetable kingdom; and in the animal kingdom, the well-known 
substance glycerine, the sweet principle of animal fats and oils ; 
lactic acid, the acid of sour milk; formic acid, the product of vital 
action in ants; and leucine, a fine white powdery substance result- 
ing from the treatment of certain organic tissues with dilute 
sulphuric acid. The last is ordinarily found in the spleen, pancreas, 
liver, bile, kidneys, and salivary glands. All these and many allied 
substances have of late been synthetically prepared from inorganic 
elements; but the first organic material thus artificially con- 
structed was Urea, an excretory product of the mammalia, and 
this was effected by a German hanet (Wohler), in the year 1828, 
in the following manner :—“ Cyanide of potassium—a body which 
can exist at a red heat, and which can moreover be formed directly 
from its constituents, carbon, nitrogen, and potassium—was oxydized 
