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therein. The great German chemist having but a year previously, in 

 1840, published his celebrated work, " Organic Chemistry in its 

 Application to Agriculture and Physiology," had been naturally led 

 to investigations of a similar order concerning the chemical pheno- 

 mena of animal life, and was then actually preparing his " Chemistry 

 applied to Animal Physiology." Liebig, no doubt, had freely stated 

 the results of his researches in lectures delivered long before the 

 publication of Dumas and Boussingault's pamphlet ; but there is not 

 a shadow of proof that Dumas was influenced by inquiries which at 

 the time were not published. The accusations, it cannot be denied, 

 rather hastily hazarded by Liebig, could not but cause a temporary 

 estrangement between the two great chemists. Fortunately it was of 

 only short duration, and left, as we already have had occasion to 

 learn from their own mouths, no bitterness in their minds. Nor was 

 there any cause for such estrangement. Indeed, the unbiassed 

 reader of to-day no longer doubts that the conceptions which formed 

 the subject of dispute were independently arrived at by both inquirers. 

 And we are all the more confirmed in this view when we learn that 

 documents have since been found which unmistakably prove that as 

 far back as 1792 Lavoisier was acquainted with the mutual relation 

 presented by the phenomena of vegetal and animal life. 



We have still to allude to the important series of commemoration 

 addresses which Dumas delivered on many of his departed friends 

 and colleagues. Each one of these addresses, which collected would 

 fill an imposing volume, is a work of art we are never tired of con- 

 templating ; each one attains its end by giving a life-like portrait of 

 the person commemorated, a portrait which remains indelibly stamped 

 on our memory. We know not which to admire most, the concise- 

 ness which excludes all that is non-essential from the sketch, or the 

 poetic inspiration which fires the monumental style and throws upon 

 the form it pictures the light of an ideal conception. Nor are these 

 addresses wanting in numerous interesting particulars which, drawn 

 from the author's own personal intercourse with his heroes, give a 

 life-like colouring to his portraits. Such commemoration addresses 

 Dumas has delivered on Auguste Beroet, Jules Pelonze, Geoff roy Saint- 

 Hilaire, Auguste de la Rive, Alexandre and Adolphe Brongniart, 

 Guizot, Antoine Balard, Count Rumford, Victor Regnault, Charles 

 and Henri Sainte Claire-Deville. 



Nor should, when Dnmas's commemoration addresses are enume- 

 rated, his beautiful Faraday lecture be left unnoticed. It is well 

 known that soon after Faraday's death in 1867 the Council of the 

 Chemical Society of London organised a periodical celebration of his 

 life and labours by instituting a triennial prize to be conferred upon 

 scientific men of all countries whom they proposed from time to time 

 to invite for the purpose of rendering homage to the memory of the 



