ANNALS 



OF 



PHILOSOPHY. 



JANUARY, 1826. 



Article L 



Some Observations on the Jievieiv of Dr. Thomson's " Attempt to 

 establish the First Principles of Chemistry by Experiment," in, 

 the 39^/t Number of the Journal of Science. By the Author 

 of that Work. 



This is the fourth personal attack upon the Professor of 

 Chemistry in Glasgow College which has appeared in Mr. 

 Brande's Journal — all of them from the 'pen of the same indivi- 

 dual, Dr. Andrew Ure, of the Andersoniau Institution, Glasgow; 

 who it seems is not satisfied with puffing his own works in all the 

 Newspapers, and all the Reviews and Journals, where he can get a 

 quack-bill admitted; but thinks it necessary likewise to exert his 

 energies to bring down other chemical writers to his own level. 

 Judging, naturally enough, that if in other respects they were all 

 upon a par in the estimation of the public, the most impudent and 

 the most profligate would have the greatest chance of rising into 

 notice. Dr. Henry and myself happening to be the most suc- 

 cessful authors of chemical treatises in Great Britain, he levelled 

 his formidable batteries in succession against us both, with what 

 success I leave the public to determine. 



To his attacks upon the fifth edition of my System of Che- 

 mistry, in which he informs his readers that the book is of no 

 value, but that no chemist can possibly do without it, I made no 

 reply ; leaving the two propositions which constituted the main 

 object of the review to refute one another. While engaged in 

 drawing up the review of the sixth edition of my System, he was 

 frequently coming about me, sometimes visiting me in my labo- 

 ratory, and sometimes at my own house ; and were I to repeat 

 the adulation with which he was perpetually loading me, and to 

 compare it with the terms in which he speaks of me in his 

 Review, written at the time when the expressions of adulation 

 were still in his mouth, no one could believe that what I stated 



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