1869.] Chemisiry. 535 



Dr. Williamson, and said that it would be better to defer the 

 discussion. He would, however, remark that those who opposed 

 the atomic theory must explain how, according to the notion of the 

 infinite divisibility of matter, they had combination in definite pro- 

 portion at all. It seemed to him utterly impossible to explain 

 combination in definite proportion by the theory of infinite 

 divisibility. 



On the 17th of June the Society met at the Royal Institution, 

 Albemarle Street, on the occasion of the deHvery, by the celebrated 

 French chemist Dumas, of the Faraday Lecture, 



The President, Dr. A. W. Williamson, F.E.S., first addressed 

 the meeting in appropriate terms, introducing M. Dumas. He 

 said that the Society was here assembled to inaugurate what would 

 be inadequately described as a monument in honour of Faraday. 

 The Faraday Lectureship had been founded by the Council of the 

 Chemical Society in the hope that it would promote the advancement 

 of human knowledge, and surely no higher tribute of respect could 

 be paid to a great man than to do in his name what he would have 

 loved best to see done. The greatest difficulty which is experienced, 

 and the greatest defect which one observes, is this, that workers in 

 one Hne of thought are frequently ignorant, or insufficiently cogni- 

 zant of what others are doing, and the defect shows itself between 

 those who are working in different countries more than between those 

 who are working in the same country. Now, imagine that we could 

 induce to come among us a man possessed of one of those master 

 minds which forms a focus of hght throughout science and amongst 

 all those who are interested in science ; suppose that he were to tell 

 us the thoughts which are uppermost in his own mind, and — best 

 of all — that he were to make us for a time thiuk with him in the 

 very words of his own language ; imagine that such a highly-gifted 

 man combined in his own person the genius of a discoverer, the 

 breadth of intellect of a philosopher, and the lucid fluency of an 

 orator. I am sure that you would agree with me, that his visit 

 would inaugurate something which Faraday would truly have 

 rejoiced to see. Imagine, I say, those things, accurately fix in your 

 mind's eye the image of such a man — and Dumas is before you. 



M. Dumas's lecture commenced with a brief eloge of his friend 

 the late Professor Faraday. The lecturer then, with admirable 

 eloquence, passed to the consideration, first, of what he termed 

 " la mcdiere hrute," and of its forces ; and secondly, of organic 

 matter and the forces special to it. He traced the origin of some 

 of the more important modern chemical doctrines, of the labours of 

 the Greek philosophers, and identified the principle of the ancient 

 classification into fire, air, earth, and water, with that of Lavoisier's 

 chemical elements. He acknowledged his great admiration of the 

 labours of Dalton and Prout, and in a most lucid manner pointed 



