210 Description of Messrs. Monteith and Co.'s 



tually falling into difficulties, and committing mistakes from 

 time to time of the most ruinous description. Slight variations 

 in the qualities and state of the materials employed, in the 

 mode of mixture, in the temperature, or duration of the process, 

 occasioned variations of result, which they could neither foresee, 

 regulate, nor counteract ; and, though the profits might be con- 

 siderable on a successful operation, yet failures were so frequent 

 and so expensive as to render the business not a little precarious 

 and uncomfortable. Hence we can understand why chemical 

 manufactories have undergone such vicissitudes of fortune, — 

 some raising their proprietors to unexpected opulence, others 

 sinking them to unlooked-for ruin. 



The owners of chemical establishments, becoming at length 

 impatient of the vassalage in which they had been long held by 

 blundering and obstinate hirelings, began to inquire into the 

 principles of their peculiar arts, and were thus led to cultivate 

 the society of men of science. They now, for the first time, 

 learned that economy and precision could be ensured to their 

 processes only, by applying the same scientific rules which 

 medical censorship, backed by the authority of law, had for a 

 considerable time introduced with the happiest effect into the 

 formerly mysterious and uncertain processes of pharmacy. 

 Under this conviction, they consulted the chemical philosopher 

 on their difficulties and disappointments. Suggestions, of 

 greater or less value, were thus given and acted on, which led 

 to new questions on the part of the manufacturer, and new 

 researches on that of the chemist : and thus an alliance began 

 between theory and practice, which has, in a very few years, 

 carried several of the chemical arts of this country to an 

 extraordinary pitch of perfection. 



Instances have, undoubtedly, occurred of chemists of some 

 reputation having given delusive advice to the manufacturer; 

 as we see chemical authors publish, as processes of art, formulae 

 very disadvantageous and even absurd. These misdirections 

 are almost always to be ascribed either to neglect of experi- 

 menting with due care on an adequate scale, or to superficial 

 acquaintance with the principles of the science. It is very pos- 



