98 



NATURE 



[May 31, 1900 



appears even then to have existed in Germany, it is satis- 

 factory to learn that he was never influenced by it : — 



" Dann war g^erade ihni der afflammende Strohfeuer- 

 enthusiasmus der Franzosen nicht sympathisch, sein 

 deftiges, bedachtes Wesen war sehr wohl, wir haben das 

 ja gesehen, begeisterungsfahig und hingebend, aber, wie 

 sein Humor nichts von dem spriihenden Feuerwerk 

 franzosischen Esprits hatte, so wenig trat sein Enthusi- 

 asmus als schnell verrauschende Schwarmerei auf. Die 

 langsame niedersachsische Art der Englander war ihm, 

 dem Schwaben, darum viel herzwarmender als das 

 griechische Feuer der Franzosen." 



It is, in fact, quite remarkable to find throughout this 

 biography how warmly Schdnbein felt himself in sym- 

 pathy with England and English people. Faraday, 

 Grove and Graham were his intimate and life-long 

 friends. He appears to have gone to Paris under the 

 same conditions and for the same purpose that he came 

 here — to acquire a more intimate knowledge of the lan- 

 guage, and to gain some insight into French pedagogy. 

 The school in Paris, kept by a M. Rivail, in which he 

 temporarily became a teacher, was unsatisfactory from 

 ■every point of view, and on the whole the young German 

 . seems to have had anything but a pleasant time in the 

 French capital about that period. But there, as else- 

 where, he made the best of his opportunities by attending 

 lectures at the Sorbonne, where he came under the in- 

 fluence of Gay-Lussac and Thenard, Biot, Dumas, 

 Pouillet, Brongniart, «&c., and by the time he returned to 

 England to stay with his friend and Epsom colleague, 

 Barron, at Stanmore, his appreciation of France and the 

 French had considerably increased. Schonbein's views 

 •on the nature and constitution of Polytechnics, and his 

 •letters to Wurm written from Paris, and giving his ex- 

 perience of the Sorbonne and its professors, are full of 

 interest. 



In 1827, Merian, the professor of physics and 

 chemistry at Bile, was taken ill, and a substitute had to 

 be found to carry on his duties. The post was first offered 

 ■to Schonbein's friend, Engelhart, then also in Paris, who 

 was unable to accept it, and afterwards to Schonbein, 

 who was in England, and who finally undertook the 

 duties, thus severing himself from this country, appar- 

 ently to his regret, and becoming attached, in 1828, to 

 that University, on which he ultimately shed such lustre. 

 The first years of his connection with Bale were unsettled 

 by the provisional character of his appointment, and were 

 further troubled by political disturbances, during which 

 Schonbein himself bore arms, and it was not till February 

 1832 that he made his first communication to the scien- 

 tific society of that town. This paper dealt with the 

 classification of the elements into metals and non-metals, 

 the former being defined as those elements which form 

 basic oxides, and the latter those which form acid oxides. 

 A few other papers followed during the years 1833-1835 ; 

 one on the Pepys gas-holder, one on polarised light, one 

 on nn ignis fatuus observed at Barenthal in the Black 

 Forest, and one on the isomerism of chemical compounds. 

 With the clearing of the political atmosphere and the 

 cessation of hostilities, the University of Bale underwent 

 reorganisation, arid Schonbein was appointed ordinary 

 professor of physics and chemistry in 1834. His mar- 

 /riage took place the following year, towards the end of 

 NO. 1596, VOL. 62] 



which (December 23, 1835) he made known to the 

 " Naturforschenden Gesellschaft " his memorable work 

 on the behaviour of tin and iron towards nitric acid, later 

 communications on the passive state of iron and other 

 metals having been made on January 21 and March 3, 

 1836. 



The observation which formed the starting-point of 

 Schonbein's researches appears to have been made by 

 many previous investigators, among whom our own 

 countryman, James Keir, F.R.S. {Phil. Trans. 1794) is 

 given the priority. The period covered by the next sec- 

 tion of the present work, viz. from 1836 to 1849, was full 

 of activity and productiveness on the part of Schonbein, 

 whose development of ideas, from his first experiments 

 on the " passive " state of metals through all their rami- 

 fications into the various fields of electro-chemistry, is 

 followed out and set forth by Dr. Kahlbaum with a 

 masterly hand. As we are at this period well within what 

 might be called the public aspect of Schonbein's work, 

 when his results were being continuously published and 

 discussed throughout the scientific world, it is unneces- 

 sary to dwell at any greater length upon the contents of 

 the present instalment of his biography. It will interest 

 English readers particularly to find how skilfully the 

 authors trace the influence of Schonbein's correspondents, 

 and particularly Faraday, upon his work. This work 

 centred round the subjects of the origin of the electric 

 current and the polarisation of the electrodes. The great 

 controversy between the " chemical " and the " contact " 

 theories of electromotive force was then raging, and it is 

 now a matter of history how ably and staunchly Schon- 

 bein advocated the former. Most clearly are his views 

 expressed in the extracts from his correspondence with 

 Faraday, PoggendorfTf, Grove, De la Rive and others 

 which the authors have brought togetherin this biography. 

 Now and again passages occur which are really pro- 

 phetic, such, for example, as his statement concerning 

 the possible utility of the "Voltaic cell" in organic 

 chemical investigation,! and his remarks 2 on the desira- 

 bility of there being a more frequent blending of physics 

 and chemistry in the same individual, as exemplified by 

 Berzelius, Gay-Lussac, De la Rive, Becquerel, Daniel and 

 Grove. Dr. Kahlbaum points to the modern school of 

 physical chemistry as the embodiment of this wish. 



In the concluding section, Schonbein's position in the 

 world of science, as deduced from his own statements, 

 is most instructively summed up. He was something 

 more than a " physicist " or " chemist " :— 



"Also Schonbein war nichts wenigerals ein kritikloser 

 Anhanger der Naturphilosophie im gewohnlichen'Sinne 

 des Wortes, als der er im allgemeinen verschrieen ist, 

 aber er war eine durch and durch philosophisch angelegte 

 Natur mit gefiilltem philosophischem Schulsack und gut 

 geschultem Denken, die eben immer aus theoretischen 

 Ansichten heraus ihre Arbeiten unternahm." 



This judgment is borne out by an extract relating to 

 his work on ozone contained in a letter written to Liebig 

 in 1866, in which he states that, although the detection of 

 a peculiar smell in electrolytic oxygen was accidental, all 

 that has since proceeded from this observation cannot be 

 ascribed to accident. 



] Pogg. Ann. 1839, xlvii. 583. 



'^ Beitrdge zur physikalischen Chemie, 1844. 



