February 8, 1900] 



NATURE 



339 



mixing together." E ven the editor of the present volume 



(mds it desirable to append a sort of apologetic note 



). 225) concerning this "harsh verdict," and pointing 



lit that, although concerned with the chemistry of only 



one element, this branch of the science has had " great 



practical value and importance." It is not to be 



wondered at that Schonbein should have felt some 



uepidation in meeting his great compeer Liebig, the 



♦ither of modern organic chemistry, which event is 



iphically described in a letter written to Faraday in 



-33 'p. 216) :— 



• " Of course, I met Liebig at Munich, whom I knew before 

 little more than by sight, but within the first five minutes 

 we had found out the footing upon which both of us could 

 move comfortably enough. You will laugh when I tell 

 you Liebig asked me to deliver a lecture before a very 

 large audience in his stead, and Mr. Schonbein, though 

 reluctantly, yielded to that strange demand. The subject 

 Heated was that queer thing called 'Ozone,* which tenor 

 twelve years ago, as you are perhaps aware, was declared 

 by a countryman of yours and pupil of Liebig's to be a 

 " nonens.' " 



Could the shade of Schonbein revisit the laboratory of 



modern worker in organic chemistry, he would find that 



:,e latest " Handbook" consisted of four large volumes, 



mtaining altogether some 6000 pages of closely printed 



latter, all compiled by one man (Beilstein). But nature, 



which endowed the " mighty atom " of carbon with such 



marvellous potentialities, had her revenge upon the illus- 



ious Swabian during his lifetime, for she placed in his 



ly a discovery which, curiously enough, is just now 



citing the greatest interest, viz. the oxygen-carrying 



uver of certain enzymes known at the present time as 



oxydases." His first allusion to this is in 1855, when he 



, rote to Faraday : — 



" You know that I entertain a sort of innate dislike to 

 iLich anything being in the slightest way connected with 

 jiganic chemistry, knowing too well the difficulty of the 

 subject, and the weakness of my powers to grapple with 

 it ; but, in spite of this well-grounded disinclination, I 

 have of late, and as it were by mere chance, been carried 

 in the midst of that field, upon the intricacies and depths 

 of which I have been used all my life to look with feel- 

 ings of unbounded respect and even awe. The picking 

 up of a mushroom has led to that strange aberration of 

 mine, and you will ask how such a trifling occurrence 

 could do that. The matter stands thus : What the 

 botanists tell me to be called Boletus luridus, with some 

 other sorts of mushroom, has the remarkable property of 

 turning rapidly blue, when their hat and stem happen to 

 be broken and exposed to the action of atm[ospheric]air. 

 On one of my ramblings I found a specimen of the said 

 Boletus, perceived the change of colour alluded to, and 

 being struck with the curious phenomenon, took the bold 

 resolution to ascertain, if possible, its proximate cause." 



He then describes his experiments in some detail, and 

 comes to the conclusion that this and other Fungi con- 

 tain an "organic matter" which is "a true carrier of 

 active oxygen." This letter was communicated to the 

 Philosophical Magazine, and published in vol. ii. 1855. 



As another example of Schonbein's power of grasping 

 and dealing with scientific problems, we may refer to his 

 treatment of " polarisation," which term he used in at 

 least two senses, viz. the electrical sense in which it is 

 now used as indicating the reversal of current by charged 

 SO. 1580, VOL. 61I 



electrodes (1838), and later (1859) to indicate "two active 

 kinds of oxygen standing to each other in the relation 

 of -f to - ." This association of ideas in the philosopher's 

 mind is a good instance of prevision, and his remark- 

 able comparison of the opposite states of the two kinds 

 of oxygen to Pasteur's racemic combination of the two 

 tartaric acids (p. 288) is a bold analogy which may even 

 yet find justification. This explanation of voltaic polari- 

 sation, given as far back as 1839, is substantially the 

 same as that adopted at the present day. So also his 

 views on the course of chemical change, expressed in a 

 letter to Faraday in 1856, are so much in harmony with 

 modern notions that they are worth emphasising by 

 quotation : — 



" Another fact, not quite void of scientific interest, is 

 this, that in some instances I can show, as it were, steps 

 which the oxidation of certain matter passes ; ... it is 

 not impossible that any oxidation is a sort of chemical 

 drama, consisting of different acts, the last of which is 

 real oxidation. . . . Schonbein maintaining that between 

 the moment on which two isolated elementary bodies 

 meet, and that of their chemical associating being finished, 

 there lies a whole world of phenomena, and is very much 

 of which the chemists of the present day have as yet not 

 the slightest notion. There is even within inorganic 

 chemistry something which I might call physiology, and 

 the most interesting and truly scientific object of chemical 

 research lies, to [in ?] my opinion, within the short in- 

 terval of time alluded to, and hence the great difficulty 

 of such an investigation" (p. 271). 



The next paragraph in this letter mentions, by the way, 

 A synthesis of formic acid by the oxidation of olefiant gas 

 by ozonised oxygen. 



Among the other numerous subjects discussed in the 

 course of the correspondence, " contact action " may be 

 mentioned. In sending a pamphlet to Faraday, pub- 

 lished in 1844 by Schonbein, the latter says :— 



" There is also a paper in the book treating of chemical 

 effects produced by contact, on which I should like very 

 much to have your opinion. Having these many years 

 entertained strong doubts about the correctness of the 

 atomic theory, and been inclined to consider what is 

 called a ' molecule ' of a body as a centre of physical 

 forces (italics ours), I have tried to make that view bear 

 upon the chemical actions being produced by contact." 



So that we have here the Boscovich notion very clearly 

 set forth. The same letter also contains a paragraph 

 which will go to the heart of many and many a worker 

 in science who reads this notice : — 



" Having had no less than nineteen hours to lecture a 

 week in the course of this winter, you may easily imagine 

 that I had no time for making researches : I grow, 

 indeed, impatient of that everlasting schoolmastering, 

 and am longing for being placed under circumstances 

 more favourable to scientific pursuits." 



In selecting specimens of the correspondence from the 

 volume before us, we have necessarily given Schonbein 

 the greater prominence. Faraday, as already explained, 

 was not so communicative of his scientific results. The 

 latter, moreover, may be assumed to be more familiar in 

 this country than the original papers and memoirs of the 

 Swabian chemist. But scanty as are the English philo- 

 sopher's references to his work, the chronological se- 

 quence of his main discoveries can be traced, and these 



