NATURE 



141 



THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 18S0 



THE CHEMISTRY OF THE FUTURE 

 Ideal Chanistiy. By Sir B. C. Brodie, Bart., D.C.L., 

 F.R.S. A Reprint of a Lecture delivered before the 

 Chemical Society on June 6, 1S67. (London: Mac- 

 millan and Co., 1S80.) 



CHEMISTS who wish to study the " Calculus of 

 Chemical Operations " will value this reprint of the 

 lecture delivered by Sir Benjamin Brodie shortly after 

 presenting his first memoir on the subject to the Royal 

 Society, as it is in the main devoted to the description 

 and explanation of the special symbols employed in the 

 Calculus. 



Even if this were the time and place, I should not 

 venture to submit Sir Benjamin Brodie's views to that 

 exhaustive analysis, which I believe has hitherto never 

 been accorded to them, but which they must ere long 

 receive at the hands of chemists. As yet only portions 

 of the Calculus have been published, viz., Part \. "On 

 the Construction of Chemical Symbols," and Part IL 

 " On the Analysis of Chemical Events," although a valu- 

 able supplementary explanation of certain features was 

 recently elicited by Naquet's criticisms. We have still 

 to learn how the author proposed to treat of isomerism, 

 by far the most intricate and difficult problem yet to be 

 solved in chemistry, and let us hope that his departure 

 from amongst us, which we now deeply lament, may not 

 involve the suspension of judgment on this point he asked 

 for but a short time ago being for ever. 



I cannot refrain from devoting this notice to specially 

 directing attention to what appears to me to be the topic 

 of fundamental importance in the lecture, viz. the sugges- 

 tion, made the author believes for the first time excepting 

 in a few words at the conclusion of his first Memoir in 

 the Philosophical Transactions, of the possible decom- 

 position at the elevated temperature of the sun of certain 

 chemical elements. 



The fundamental hypothesis of the Calculus is to 

 express the symbol of the unit of hydrogen by one letter, a. 

 Hydrogen is to be regarded as constructed at once, by 

 one operation. But while hydrogen is conceived of as 

 the product of a single operation, the hypothesis indicates 

 that oxygen, ^-, cannot be conceived of as made by less 

 than two operations; while chlorine, a;^-, and nitrogen, 

 a V-, for example, are each to be conceived of as made by 

 three operations, one operation in each case being that 

 by which hydrogen is made. In short, the hypothesis 

 involves the conclusion that there are several distinct 

 classes — three at least — of " elements," of which hydrogen, 

 oxygen and chlorine are the types, formed respectively 

 by a single operation, by two similar operations, and by 

 several operations not all similar. In other words, to 

 quote the author, " we are led to a certain physical hypo- 

 thesis as to the origin and causes of chemical phenomena." 

 He then continues : — 



" Now what I am going to suggest >ou must consider 

 to be put before you with reservation, but we may con- 

 ceive that in remote time, or in remote space, there did 

 exist formerly, or do exist now, certain simpler forms of 

 matter than we find on the surface of our globe — a, x, |, v, 

 and so on — I say we may at least conceive of, or imagine, 

 Vol. XXIII. — No. 581 



the existence in time and space of these simpler forms of 

 being, of which we have some records remaining to us in 

 such elements as hydrogen and mercury. We may con- 

 sider that in remote ages the temperature of matter was 

 much higher than it is now, and that these other things 

 existed then in the state of perfect gases — separable 

 existences — uncombined. This is the farthest barrier to 

 which in the way of analysis theory can reach. Beyond 

 all is conjecture. There may be something further, but 

 if so, we have no suspicion of it from the facts of the 

 science. We may then conceive that the temperature 

 began to fall and these things to combine with one 

 another and to enter into new forms of existence, appro- 

 priate to the circumstances in which they were placed. 

 We may suppose that at this time water (n 0, hydrochloric 

 acid (ax), and many other bodies began to e.xist. We 

 may further consider that as the temperature went on 

 falling, certain forms of matter became more permanent 

 and more stable, to the exclusion of other forms. We 

 have evidence on the surface of our globe of the per- 

 manence of certain forms of matter to the exclusion of 

 others. We may conceive of this process of the lowering 

 of temperature going on so that these substances, ax" and 

 av", when once formed, could never be decomposed — in 

 fact, that the resolution of these bodies into their com- 

 ponent elements could never occur again. You would 

 then have something of our present system of things." 



We have here a most distinct prior statement by Sir Ben- 

 jamin Brodie of views almost identical with those which 

 have been so persistently urged for several years past by 

 Mr. Lockyer, whose arguments, however, have hitherto met 

 with but little sympathy from chemists, mainly perhaps on 

 account of the unwonted character of the evidence. In his 

 paper read before the Royal Society in December 1878, Mr. 

 Lockyer adduced two lines of evidence in support of his 

 hypothesis of elemental dissociation at high temperatures : 

 The existence of lines common to several spectra — so- 

 called basic lines — and the progressive alteration in the 

 character of the spectra of the stars v.ith tempera- 

 ture. Neither of these lines of argument has, I be- 

 lieve, yet been impugned, and the criticisms launched 

 against the hypothesis have been on side issues of no real 

 importance to the main cjuestion under discussion. More 

 recently additional evidence in the same direction has 

 been obtained by the comparison of the observations of 

 Tacchini and others on solar storms. It appears that 

 whereas at certain times lines which are admittedly all 

 iron lines are visible, at other times certain of these lines 

 are wanting from the spectrum, new lines appearing in 

 their place : fluctuations of this kind taking place at 

 frequent intervals, but evidently in accordance with some 

 well-defined law. Facts such as these may after all meet 

 with some other interpretation than that furnished by the 

 "dissociation" hypothesis, although at present this 

 affords by far the simplest explanation of them. A com- 

 munication of Mr. Lockyer's, read at the last meeting but 

 one of the Royal Society, however, adduces evidence which 

 if confirmed must, it would seem, be regarded as final. It 

 is well known that the velocity of uprush or downrush of 

 vapours at the sun may be determined by observations 

 of the amount of displacement from their normal position 

 of the lines in the spectrum of the vapours, and obviously 

 if all the lines in a given spectrum — that of iron, for 

 instance— are lines due to one substance, it must be a 

 matter of indifference by which of the lines the velocity is 

 measured. Whereas, on the other hand, if this be not 

 the case, and the simpler substances into which the body 



