XVI 



highest degree of proficiency. At the same time he founded (in 1824), 

 with his friends Andonin and Brongniart, the "Annales des Sciences 

 Naturelles," and also began to collect the materials necessary for the 

 publication of his grand " Traite de Chimio appliquee aux Arts," the 

 first volume of which appeared in 1828. 



But if this period was for Dumas one of incessant labour, and 

 often of the most strenuous efforts, it also enabled him to realise the 

 most ardent of his aspirations. For some time Dumas had been 

 intimate with the family of Alexandra Brongniart, the father of his 

 friend Adolphe, and was not long before he became betrothed to 

 Mdlle. Herminie Brongniart, the eldest daughter of the illustrious 

 geologist. It was on -February 18, 1826, that the matrimonial alliance 

 was concluded which has been for more than half a century a source 

 of the purest happiness for both consorts. 



At the very commencement of his labours in the cause cf organic 

 chemistry Dumas had found himself face to face with a powerful 

 rival in Germany, who, setting out by a curious coincidence from the 

 same starting-point, the study of pharmacy, had entered the lists 

 without passing through the physiological and natural history stages 

 of his competitor. Liebig and Dumas have had, indeed, some strange 

 encounters on the field of science. These encounters, to which we 

 may have to refer hereafter, were occasionally rather violent, as might 

 have been expected when two young and fiery champions, each per- 

 suaded of the justice of his views, were rushing at each other. Once 

 or twice perhaps in the heat of battle an unguarded word might have 

 sounded like personal provocation ; but however fierce the aggression, 

 the combatants never forgot that they were both fighting under the 

 banner of truth, and the contest having been decided, the antagonists 

 invariably separated with increased regard for each other. 



But we must return to Dumas' early labours in the field of experi- 

 mental investigation. They were by no means exclusively devoted to 

 organic chemistry ; indeed, one of his first researches, which riveted 

 at once the eyes of the scientific world upon the young French chemist, 

 was of a much larger scope. We allude to the classical paper, " On some 

 Points of the Atomic Theory," which was published in the " Annales 

 de Chimie et de Physique " for 1826, and in which the author soars 

 to the very heights of chemical science. Whoever to-day, after a 

 lapse of nearly sixty years, peruses this admirable memoir, which aims 

 at the solution of old problems by new methods, cannot but grate- 

 fully acknowledge that a good deal of what has long since become 

 common property, is rooted in its substance ; but he will at the same 

 time be astonished to perceive that many of our modern views, which 

 we are in the habit of considering as the acquirement of the last few 

 f, had already found expression in this paper, 

 ancing back at the results of this memoir in the light of our 



