Vll 



that, on the 29th of March in last year, he died of pneumonia at 

 Joldwynds. 



J. P. 



CARL SCHORLEMMER, Professor of Organic Chemistry in Victoria 

 University, Owens College, Manchester, was born in 1834, at Darm- 

 stadt, a town remarkable as having given birth to many distinguished 

 chemists. He was educated at Darmstadt and at Giessen ; he came 

 to Manchester as private assistant to Professor Roscoe, in the year 

 1858, and shortly afterwards, on the resignation of Mr. Dittmar, he 

 became the official laboratory assistant in Owens College. In this 

 position he not only supervised the practical work of the laboratory, 

 but also lectured on organic chemistry ; yet he found time for original 

 investigation, and shortly afterwards began his work on the hydro- 

 carbons, which has placed his name high in the list of organic 

 chemists of the century. The commencement of this research was 

 due to the initiative of the late Mr. John Barrow, of the Dal ton 

 Chemical Works, Gorton, who placed a sample of the light oils 

 which he had obtained in the distillation of cannel coal at Professor 

 Roscoe's disposal. At that time our knowledge of the chemical com- 

 position of the light boiling coal-oils was very incomplete, and Schor- 

 lemmer was urged to begin the investigation. 



This work led to results which altogether modified the existing 

 ideas concerning the constitution of the paraffin hydrocarbons, and 

 laid the foundation of the modern science of organic chemistry. 



Up to 1848 the only known member of the paraffin series of hydro- 

 carbons was methane, CH 4 . In the above year the researches of 

 Kolbe, on the one hand, on the electrolysis of the fatty acids, and 

 those of Frankland, on the other, respecting the isolation of the 

 so-called alcohol radicals, had opened out new fields for investiga- 

 tion. 



The hydrocarbons, then termed the alcohol radicals, were supposed 

 to contain two molecules of the radical, methyl being represented as 

 CH 3 CH 3 , ethyl as C 2 H 5 C 2 H 5 . Together with these, a second 

 series of hydrocarbons, possessing the same composition, was supposed 

 to exist, thus : C 2 H 5 H, ethyl hydride, having the same composition as 

 the radical methyl, and C 4 H 9 H, butyl hydride, having the same com- 

 position as the radical ethyl, were considered as being bodies stand- 

 ing in the same relation to the radical as an alcohol does to an 

 ether. 



The existence of two such series of hydrocarbons is, however, only 

 explicable upon the supposition of a difference existing between the 

 four combining powers of each carbon atom, and such a supposition 

 is at variance with a general theory of the mode of building up of the 

 carbon compounds. 



