CHEMISTRY 



1293 



CHEMISTRY 



In the School- room 



^ XHEMISTRY, kem'istri, one of the 

 most, wonderful of the sciences, which deals 

 not with the appearance or the value of mat- 

 ter, but with its composition. That is, it seeks 

 to discover just what every substance in the 

 world, whether seen or unseen, is made of, and 

 what are the relations of the component parts 

 to each other. Perhaps the briefest definition 

 which can be given of it is that it is "the 

 science of the composition of substances." It 

 is chemistry that has made clear the wonder- 

 ful fact that the flashing diamond, the gritty, 

 black charcoal and the soft, lead-like graphite 

 of which pencils are made are all composed 

 of one substance carbon; it is chemistry that 

 has proved that oxygen and ozone are simply 

 two forms of the same substance, and that the 

 rusting of iron is essentially the same kind of 

 process as the burning of wood. 



Importance in Every-Day Life. Chemistry is 

 not simply an attempt to reduce matter to first 

 principles, on the part of men who cannot be 

 content to take things just as they seem. It 

 is of the utmost practical importance, and has 

 in recent years worked wonders in connection 

 with many of the commonest pursuits. Even 

 before they were thoroughly understood, many 

 of the principles of chemistry were constantly 

 used in such processes as dyeing, soap-making, 

 glass and pottery manufacture, but their use 

 was not scientifically worked out. At present, 

 however, most great manufacturing concerns 

 have their trained chemists whose business it is 

 to watch constantly processes and products, 

 both their own and, so far as possible, their 

 competitors', in the effort to discover new use- 

 ful substances, new uses for substances already 

 known, improved methods and means of de- 

 creasing expense. Soap factories, steel plants, 

 mills, mines and packing houses all have their 

 laboratories, which are considered as essential 

 as the business offices. The insistence in recent 

 years upon purity in all food products has 

 given to chemistry a new commercial impor- 

 tance, for nothing less than minute analysis 

 can unfailingly determine adulteration. 



Growth of the Science. It might seem as 

 though, in the development of sciences, chem- 

 istry would have been the very last one to ap- 

 pear, for much of that with which it deals can- 

 not be handled and is invisible, and could never 

 force itself upon the attention of anyone. For 

 instance, water has always been one of the 

 central substances about which man's life has 

 grown up, and man has therefore needed to 

 have considerable knowledge of water. But if 

 he knew where it was to be found; that it 

 would quench thirst, put out fires and help all 

 living things to grow; that it would not run 

 uphill unless forced, and had a tendency to 

 "seek its own level," he had enough practical 

 facts to live by. What mattered it to him 

 whether water was an individual substance or a 

 compound of other substances? 



Alchemy. But there was one substance in 

 which, by reason of their greed, men early 

 became especially interested. That was gold. 

 If they could just find out how gold was made, 

 they could have plenty of the precious metal 

 without all the labor and expense of -mining it. 

 And thus many centuries ago men began to 

 study into the composition of substances that 

 they might find something which would turn 

 less valuable metals into gold. This study be- 

 came known as alchemy, probably from 

 Chemia, an old name of Egypt, the country 

 where the study first grew up. See ALCHEMT. 



Beginnings of a True Science. Needless to aay, 

 these alchemists, or philosophers, as they called 

 themselves, never succeeded in making gold, 

 but they did something quite as valuable, in 

 leading the way to the science of chemistry: 

 In their experiments they inevitably dis- 

 covered many things for which they were not 

 looking properties of matter, new substances 

 and new ways of making old ones, and above 

 all, the healing properties of drugs. Medi- 

 cine in its modern sense grew up side by side 

 with chemistry. 



Strange theories were formed from the half- 

 known facts as they emerged, and one of these 

 theories, common in the early years of the six- 



