11 



from utilitarian motives, afforded material for those broad 

 generalizations as to the genesis of the material of the 

 earth's crust and the constitution of the whole solar system, 

 which are the most brilliant products of his maturer thought. 

 They also led him to distrust the finality assigned by the 

 chemists of the day to the atomic theory, as propounded 

 bv Dalton, and therefore to advocate and expound the then 

 revolutionary views of Gerhardt and Laurent. Without con- 

 tradiction his contributions to literature at this period were 

 potent agents in spreading the doctrine of the new chemistry, 

 of which he was not only a disciple but one of the apostles. 

 His essay, for instance, " On the Theory of Chemical Changes 

 and on Equivalent Values," published in Silliman's Journal, 

 March. 1853, was reprinted in the London, Edinburgh and 

 Dublin philosophical magazines, and in German translation in 

 the Chemische Centralblatt. I Innt himself considered that the 

 views expressed in this essay, and which were elaborated and 

 applied in his subsequent essays, u On the Composition and 

 Kquivalent Volume of Mineral Species," u On Solution and 

 the Chemical Process," " On the Objects and Method of 

 Mineralogy," and " On the Theory of Types in Chemistry," 

 " form the basis of a rational theory of chemistry and of a 

 true mineralogical classilication." 



When sending a copy of his u Essay on Chemical 

 Changes " to a friend in 1853 he says : u This last, unless 1 

 mistake, will reform entirely the theory of chemistry, and 

 although I can scarcely flatter myself that my ideas will all 

 be admitted at present or even understood 1 am sure that a 



iry hence my essay will be a landmark in the past his 



of the s 



Thir rs later, when the guesses at truth made in 



his earlier essays had to him laws beyond question, he 



writes to the same friend : " I if" tomorrow, Monday, fco 



York, to take the chair at a grand dinner, April <l, the 



:h<- Chemical Society, at which, as senior 



I am :i~ .reside. \1 : : 'decesSOrs, J. 



W . I'raperand .1. Lawrence Smith, are gone, and n 



