NA TURE 



269 



THURSDAY, JANUARY 25, 1877 



THE ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA 



Ejicyclopcedia Britannica. Ninth Edition. Vol. V. 



(Edinburgh : A. and C. Black, 1876.) 



'"r*HE article of greatest scientific interest in this 

 J- volume is, of course, that on Chemistry. We can 

 conceive of few literary tasks more trying to a duly 

 qualified and conscientious writer than to attempt to give 

 a comprehensive and well-balanced account of the rise, 

 progress, and present position of a science like chemistry 

 within an encyclopaedia article of such compass as even 

 the most compliant of editors would tolerate. And we 

 must confess at the outset that it was with some feeling 

 of sympathy for its authors, engendered by this reflection, 

 that we commenced the examination of their essay — a feel- 

 ing, however, which quickly altered its complexion as the 

 consciousness grew upon us that in everything which is 

 essential it may fairly compare with any one of its 

 predecessors. And than this, no higher praise, we think, 

 is possible. 



The article divides itself, naturally, into three parts. In 

 the first part, which we owe to Mr. F. H. Butler, is 

 traced the origin and growth of chemistry. Its only fault 

 is its exceeding brevity ; it is hardly to be expected that 

 within the space of some six or seven pages we can have 

 a picture as lively or as complete as we find in the works 

 of Hoefer or of Hermann Kopp. Of the birth of 

 chemistry very little is said, and only the slightest 

 reference is made to its association with the Greeks, 

 Arabians, and Egyptians, With the rise of the Spagy- 

 rists with Paracelsus, who taught that the true use of 

 chemistry is not to make gold but medicines, we seem to 

 perceive the first attempts at a rational pursuit of the 

 study, but the crooked manner in which the sect sought 

 to advance its doctrine of the threefold constitution of 

 matter was too much for the patience even of the gentle 

 Robert Boyle, who had scant mercy for " the sooty em- 

 piricks, having their eyes darkened and their brains 

 troubled with the smoke of their furnaces," who were 

 " wont to endeavour to evince their salt, sulphur, and mer- 

 cury (to which they gave the canting title of hypostatical 

 principles) to be the true principles of things." The 

 growth of latro-Chemistry until its final overthrow by 

 Hoffmann so late as the beginning of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury is concisely and carefully worked out, and the rela- 

 tions of its doctrines to those of Becher and Stahl 

 are made apparent. Indeed the largest portion of 

 this section of the article is devoted to the Phlogistic 

 period, and the theory itself is set in a proper light. It 

 has been too much the fashion to decry the services of 

 Stahl's great conception, and people have marvelled that 

 men of insight and logical minds — such men as Berg- 

 mann, Macquer, Scheele, or Cavendish — could have been 

 hoodwinked by such a doctrine. But the theory was 

 perfectly consistent in the outset, and it was only by the 

 very excellence with which it served the purpose of a 

 great theory that it fell. We are glad to find, too, that the 

 services of Black and Cavendish as the real founders of 

 quantitative chemistry meet with a just appreciation. The 

 labours of Lavoisier are estimated with equal impartiality. 

 Vol. XV.— No. 378 



For, as Liebig declares, although " Lavoisier discovered 

 no new body, no new property, no natural phenomenon 

 previously unknown . . . his immortal glory consisted in 

 this — that he infused into the body of the science a new 

 spirit ; but " — he is careful to add — " the members of that 

 body were already in existence and rightly joined to- 

 gether." It may be worth while noting that the date of 

 Lavoisier's famous memoir " On the Nature of the Prin- 

 ciple which Combines with the Metals during their Calci- 

 nation and which Augments their Weight," is given as 

 1755, at which time if, as some authorities declare, he was 

 born in 1745 (our author says 1743), the great chemist 

 would be of the tender age of ten years ; the careful 

 reader would doubtless marvel at so remarkable an in- 

 stance of precocity did he not discover from the context 

 that the memoir must be antedated by at least twenty 

 years. That clarte which was the distinguishing feature 

 of Lavoisier's mind is reflected in his " Trait^ de Chimie," 

 with an outline of which Mr. Butler fitly closes his 

 account of this stirring epoch. It is instructive to trace 

 the progress of our knowledge of the elementary bodies 

 from the date of the publication of that work. Excluding 

 light and caloric, Lavoisier recognised some thirty simple 

 substances ; since his time the number of the elements 

 has doubled itself, but it is remarkable to observe how 

 slow, with all our appliances, is the rate of discovery in 

 these degenerate days. Gallium, the latest on the list, 

 was brought to light in 1875. If we divide the lapsed 

 portion of the present century into periods of twenty-five 

 years, we find that the times of discovery distribute them- 

 selves as follows : — 



1800-1825 22 New elements, 



1825-1850 10 „ „ 



1850-1875 5 „ ,, 



And yet, if we may credit M. Mendelejeff and his Laws ot 

 Periodicity, we have nothing like our proper complement 

 of elements. Obviously, therefore, if the present rate of 

 increase is to be maintained, the occupation of the chemist 

 will not be gone for some time to come ; ages must elapse 

 before even the alphabet of his science is constructed ; and 

 by the tim^ that Macaulay's Richard Quongti goes to com- 

 plete his studies at the University of Tombuctoo, attracted 

 by the high scientific character of Prof, Quashaboo, the 

 learned professor will doubtless be engaged on the article 

 " Chemistry," to occupy an entire volume of the loist 

 edition of the " Britannica," which will still be published 

 by the eminent firm of Black. 



Mr. Butler repeats the common statement, that the 

 atomic theory first suggested itself to Dalton during his 

 investigations on light carburetted hydrogen, and defiant 

 gas ; the matter is probably of little moment, but as an 

 historical fact it may be noted that the germ of his great 

 work is to be found in his " Experimental Inquiry into 

 the Proportion of the Several Gases Contained in the 

 Atmosphere," read before the Literary and Philosophical 

 Society of Manchester in November, 1802. In this 

 paper Dalton states that one of the component gases — 

 the oxygen — has the power of combining chemically, in 

 two different proportions, with nitric oxide, to form two 

 distinct compounds ; and that the quantities by weight 01 

 oxygen which thus combine are in the ratio of one to 

 two. It was this circumstance which first aroused 

 Dalton's attention to the fact that one chemical element 



