PART I. 



METHODS OF VEGETABLE ANALYSIS. 



THE necessity by which mankind depends upon Origin of 

 the productions of" the vegetable kingdom for the a nalvls 

 support and comfort of life was evidently the ori- 

 ginal cause of all vegetable analysis. But the 

 methods of the first experimenters were often inju- 

 dicious from want of scientific views, and the ana- 

 lysis imperfect from want of proper instruments. 

 And hence the results of their investigations were 

 often also contradictory, and the conclusions de- 

 duced from them erroneous or absurd. But this is 

 not by any means to be wondered at, when it is re- 

 collected that the complicated nature of vegetable 

 substances, in many of their combinations, baffles 

 even now ^the power of analysis, and can in no case 

 be formed by the synthesis of art. 



If the object of the experimenter is merely that Object. 

 of extracting such compound ingredients as may be 

 known to exist in the plant, the necessary apparatus 

 is simple, and the process easy. But if it is that of 

 ascertaining the primary and radical principles of 

 which the compound ingredients are themselves 

 composed, the apparatus is then complicated, and 



