442 



NATURE 



{Sept. 8, 1887 



The Council recommend the re-election of the other 

 ordinary members of the Council, with the addition of 

 the gentlemen whose names are distinguished by an 

 asterisk in the following list : — Capt. W. de W. Abney, 

 F.R.S., Sir R. S. Ball, F.R.S., W. H. Barlow, F.R.S., 

 W. T. Blanford, F.R.S., W. Crookes, F.R.S., Prof. 

 G. H. Darwin, F.R.S., Prof. W. Boyd Dawkins, 

 F.R.S., Prof. J. Dewar, F.R.S., *Sir James Doug- 

 lass, F.R.S., Prof. W. H. Flower, F.R.S., Dr. J. H. 

 Gladstone, F.R.S., Lieutenant Colonel H. H. Godwin- 

 Austen, F.R.S., Prof. O. Henrici, F.R.S., Prof. J. W. 

 Judd, F.R.S., J. B. Martin, F.S.S., Prof H. McLeod, 

 F.R.S., Prof H. N. Moseley, F.R.S., Admiral Sir E. 

 Ommanney, C.B., F.R.S., Prof W C. Roberts-Austen, 

 F.R.S.,*Prof Schuster, F.R.S.,*Prof H. Sidgvvick,*Prof 

 Schafer, F.R.S., W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, C.M.G., F.R.S., 

 Prof T. E. Thorpe, F.R.S., *H. Woodward, F.R.S. 



Sir H. E. Roscoe, M. P., moved, and Sir R. W. Rawson 

 seconded, the adoption of the report. The motion was 

 adopted. 



The Chairman submitted the treasurer's report, which 

 stated that the receipts for the past year were ^5081 6j. id., 

 including a balance of ^1869 brought forward at the 

 Birmingham meeting. The disbursements included the 

 sum of ^1186 \Zs. in respect of grants in aid of scientific 

 research. The balance in hand was ^1718. The report 

 was adopted. 



SECTION B, 



CHEMICAL SCIENCE, 



Opening Address T!y Edward Schunck, Ph.D., F.R.S., 

 F.C.S., President of the Section. 



It is, I can assure you, with a feeling of extreme diffidence 

 that I take the chair to-day as President of the Chemical Section 

 at this meeting of the British Association. When I look round 

 me and Fee the many distinguished men who are prepared to 

 take part in our proceedings I cinnot but very strongly feel that 

 the Council's choice might have fallen on a worthier representa- 

 tive of chemical science than myself Having in the course of 

 my career bestowed more time and attention to technical matters 

 than to purely scientific subjects, and having moreover arrived at 

 a time of life when active participation in work of any kind must 

 necessarily be drawing to a close, you must not expect from me 

 the accurate knowledge of the present state of chemical science 

 and the questions that are at this moment presenting themselves 

 for solution such as would naturally be required from anyone 

 occupying the post which I liave on this occasion the honour to 

 hold. The marvellously rapid progress of chemistry during the 

 last tweniy years has made it difficult for the most industrious 

 cultivator of the science to keep abreast of the knowledge of 

 the day, and for a dilettante like myself one may say it is next 

 to impossible. I confess myself painfully conscious of my defec's 

 in this respect, and I shall therefore have to claim the indulgence 

 of the Section should questions arise on which I am unable to 

 speak with authority, or even to discuss with advantage. 



Considering, however, how efficiently I am supported by the 

 gentlemen with whom I have the honour to be associated, and 

 to whom I am sure in any case of difficulty I may appeal for 

 assistance, I trust to be able to perform the duties of my office 

 without discredit. I will not, however, trouble you with merely 

 personal questions, which are always more or less tedious, but 

 proceed with the few remarks which I wish to make, and which, 

 if not new or instructive, may perhaps serve to entertain you 

 during the time usually devoted to addresses of this kind. 



I think you will hardly expect me, even were I fully competent 

 to do so, to review the progress of chemistry during the last 

 half-century, for the time at my disposal would be too short and 

 the result at my hands, I fear, unsatisfactory. I shall prefer to 

 call attention in a few words to the chemistry of other days as I 

 knew it, and the chemistry of the present time as known to us 

 all, and to point out what I consider to be the chief character- 

 istics of each. I shall then, with your permission, point out a 

 few of the directions in which, in my opinion, the chemistry of 

 the future will probably be developed, and in this undertaking I 

 shall perhaps be more successful than in the other ; for to discuss 

 the history of science requires exact knowledge ; but in specu- 



lating on its future the imagination comes into play, and to 

 imagine is easier than to describe. 



When I first entered on my studies, exactly fifty years ago, 

 chemistry could hardly be called a science — it was rather a col- 

 lection of isolated facts unconnected by any consistent theory 

 covering the whole field. Most of the important elements were 

 known, but of the exact proportions in which they combine to- 

 gether we were ignorant. The law of definite proportion had been 

 generally accepted, but so imperfect were the data then at our dis- 

 posal that we may say the law was rather taken for granted than 

 proved. The atomic theory of Dalton as explaining this law had 

 also been adopted by chemists ; but it is not unlikely that this 

 theory, then in its infancy, might by the vigorous onslaught of a 

 man of Berthollet's acumen have been upset, and we should then 

 have been left entirely without a guide through the bewildering 

 labyrinth of facts. Of any connexion between chemistry and 

 physics there was in those days no question ; of any but the most 

 superficial notions regarding the effects of heat, light, and elec- 

 tricity on chemical substances we had no conception. The idea 

 that chemistry could have any bearing on or connexion with 

 physiology or pathology would have been ridiculed as absurd. I 

 cannot think of the then state of organic chemistry without feel- 

 ing amused. The state of this branch of chemistry could hardly 

 perhaps be called chaotic or rudimentary, for, after all, what had 

 been done had been well done and neatly done, but the assem- 

 blage of facts of which it consisted was devoid of systematic 

 arrangement ; it re-embled a cabinet of curiosities, the com- 

 ponents of which stand in no recognizable relation to one 

 another, or a miscellaneous collection of books placed in an 

 orderly manner on shelves, but without any attempt at classifica- 

 tion. As to the genesis of organic compounds, what would now 

 be called absurd notions prevailed. I distinctly remember 

 eminent chemists maintaining that no strictly speaking organic 

 body, even of the simplest constitution, could possibly be formed 

 without the intervention of the so-called vital force. The fact, 

 then recently discovered by Wohler, of the artificial formation 

 of urea from inorganic substances, was considered as something 

 almost miraculous— i.^. as a phenomenon the like of which would 

 never again recur. Without, however, entering into further de- 

 tails, I think I may, without fear of contradiction, assert that 

 the main distinction hetween the chemistry of fifty years ago and 

 the chemistry of the present day consists in this, that whereas 

 formerly the science dealt chiefly with qualitative reactions, it 

 now occupies itself principally with quantitative determinations. 

 To have established the fact that every chemical phenomenon 

 may be represented in figures, denoting either number, measure, 

 or weight, such figures, when once accurately determined, remain- 

 ing constant and unchanged through all time — this seems to me 

 the crowning glory of modern chemistry. It is the firm esta- 

 blishment of this principle that has transformed the face of 

 chemistry and has changed it from a mere descriptive into an 

 exact science. 



In justice to our predecessors it should, however, be remem- 

 bered that this principle, though more fully developed in our 

 own day, was not for the first time set up in quite recent times. 

 The labours of Dalton, conducted on quantitative lines, were 

 performed in this city of Manchester in the early part of this 

 century. At the same time Berzelius was engaged in analyzing 

 the most important inorganic compounds and establishing the 

 fact, not previously recognized, strange as it may now appear, 

 that every well-defined substance has a definite chemical com- 

 position. But going still further back, we come to the alchemists. 

 Now alchemy, if it has any logical basis at all, is founded on 

 quantitative notions as regards matter. All metals, the alchemists 

 said, consist of sulphur, salt, and mercury (these terms signifying 

 not so much elements in the modern sense as qualities) in various 

 proportions ; hence their convertibility. Take copper, remove 

 from it a certain proportion of its sulphurous constituent, and 

 add more of the mercurial, and you have silver ; repeat the pro- 

 cess with silver, and gold results. At the time of which I speak, 

 though much important analytical work had been done by 

 Berzelius, Rose, and others in organic chemistry, though the 

 veteran Chevreul had led the way in placing organic chemistry 

 on a quantitative basis, and the composition of the most import- 

 ant organic compounds — thanks to the labours of Liebig and his 

 method of organic analysis — had been ascertained, still quan- 

 titative determinations were not considered of such paramount 

 importance as at present. In fact, scientific thought did not 

 run in that direction, but satisfied itself, for the most part, with 

 the study of qualitative reactions. It was still possible to see 



