206 THE CHEMISTRY OF CREATION. 



removed, and nearly all the rest is nitrogen. 

 Such was the simple analysis which was long 

 considered best for the determination of this 

 point. This process was called Eudiometry, 

 which signifies the measuring of the beneficial 

 principle (oxygen) of the air. 



But in this plan the solvent power of water 

 for oxygen, the uncertainty whether the whole 

 of this gas had been completely removed, with 

 several other causes of error, interfered with the 

 result ; and we may, in the recollection of these 

 errors, satisfactorily point to the real source of 

 those analytical inaccuracies which had long 

 perplexed chemical science. 



To place this subject on a sounder basis was 

 felt to be a national subject by Messrs. Dumas 

 and Boussingault, two of the most eminent 

 chemists of the French school. They resolved 

 to attempt to remove the stigma from chemistry, 

 and to determine finally the true chemical con- 

 stitution of the atmosphere. Impressed with this 

 idea, they conceived a method of analysis of per- 

 haps unparalleled ingenuity and accuracy, in the 

 employment of which every conceivable source of 

 error appears to have been guarded against. The 

 following account of it is derived from their own 

 published memoir, in a recent volume of the 

 Annales de CTiimie et de Physique. 



The air selected for analysis was collected in 



