The Evolution of Chemistry. 147 



good repute in this department of science assert that he had 

 made such a discovery, and it would doubtlessly raise con- 

 siderable skepticism, but that would be all. No one know- 

 ing the present status of the science would use the word 

 " impossible." Seasoning a priori on the subject, we would 

 expect that the cost of production would always exceed the 

 value of the product. This is poor encouragement for this 

 line of investigation. In the fields hitherto invaded and 

 conquered the reverse has been true. Substances worth less 

 than nothing actually having a negative value because of 

 being incumbrances that it cost cash to remove have been 

 and are being made into goods worth many millions of dol- 

 lars. The actual facts, when stated in simple language, are 

 more wonderful than the tales of the Arabian Nights. 

 " Yes ! " some one answers, " and the names found in the 

 story are perhaps quite as remarkable as any in that vol- 

 ume." This is very true. To read of a substance that has 

 been christened methyl-ethyl-hydroxyl-tetra-hydro-pyridine- 

 tropate sounds anything but musical to the ears of non- 

 chemists, especially when they learn that it is the dangerous 

 medical poison atropine. Every syllable of this name has a 

 meaning, and the whole tells just how the molecule is con- 

 structed. To say that rheumatic pains can be relieved by 

 oil of wintergreen is a plain statement to ordinary mortals. 

 Tell him such relief can be had by the use of methyl-ortho- 

 mono-hydroxyl-benzoate, and you will puzzle him sorely, 

 though the things are the same. 



In this hasty and necessarily imperfect review of the de- 

 velopment of modern chemistry from the absurd notions of 

 the ancients, it will be observed that our knowledge has in 

 almost every particular imitated the habits of the atoms 

 themselves. When Lavoisier gave us a true theory of com- 

 bustion, all the facts had up to that time been subsisting as 

 isolated units. After that they were clustered together like 

 a molecule. When Daltcn explained definite and multiple 

 proportions, another set of independent facts immediately 

 cohered. Next came the generalizations of Mitscherlich, 

 Hoffman, Mendelejeff, and others, each gathering into 

 united groups its own special data. A central nucleus for 

 the total was found in the law of Avogadro. As the atom 

 facts clustered together by the laws of lesser scope, so the 

 clusters themselves, like so many compound radicals, gained 

 bonds of mental union by this far-reaching generalization. 

 Our chemical knowledge, therefore, like matter itself, began 



