ADDRESS. it 



For example, Aniline — first discovered in coal-tar by Dr. Hofmann, who 

 has so admirably developed its properties — is now most extensively used as 

 the basis of red, blue, violet, and green dyes. This important discovery will 

 probably in a few years render this country independent of the world for 

 dye-stuffs ; and it is more than probable that England, instead of drawing 

 her dye-stuffs from foreign countries, may herself become the centre from 

 which all the world will be supplied. 



It is an interesting fact that at the same time in another branch of this 

 science, M. Tournet has lately demonstrated that the colours of gems, such 

 as the emerald, aqua-marina, amethyst, smoked rock-crystal, and others, are 

 due to volatile hydrocarbons, first noticed by Sir David Brewster in clouded 

 topaz, and that they are not derived from metallic oxides, as has been hitherto 

 believed. 



Another remarkable advance has recently been made by Bunsen and 

 Kirchhoff in the application of the coloured rays of the prism to analytical 

 research. We may consider their discoveries as the commencement of a new 

 era in analytical chemistry, from the extraordinary facilities they afford in 

 the qualitative detection of the minutest traces of elementary bodies. The 

 value of the method has been proved by the discovery of the new metals 

 Caesium and Rubidium by M. Bunsen, and it has yielded another remark- 

 able result in demonstrating the existence of iron, and six other known 

 metals, in the sun. 



In noticing the more recent discoveries in this important science, I must 

 not pass over in silence the valuable light which chemistry has thrown upon 

 the composition of iron and steel. Although Despretz demonstrated many 

 years ago that iron would combine with nitrogen, yet it was not until 1857 

 that Mr. C. Binks proved that nitrogen is an essential element of steel, and 

 more recently M. Carou and M. Fremy have further elucidated this subject ; 

 the former showing that cyanogen, or cyanide of ammonium, is the essential 

 element which converts wrought iron into steel; the latter combining iron 

 with nitrogen through the medium of ammonia, and then converting it into 

 steel by bringing it at the proper temperature into contact with common 

 coal-gas. There is little doubt that in a few years these discoveries will 

 enable Sheffield manufacturers to replace their present uncertain, cumbrous, 

 and expensive process, by a method at once simple and inexpensive, and so 

 completely under control as to admit of any required degree of conversion 

 being obtained with absolute certainty. Mr. Grace Calvert also has proved that 

 cast iron contains nitrogen, and has shown that it is a definite compound of 

 carbon and iron mixed with various proportions of metallic iron, according 

 to its nature. 



Before leaving chemical science, I must refer to the interesting discovery 

 by M. Deville, by which he succeeded in rapidly melting thirty-eight or 

 forty pounds of platinum — a metal till then considered almost infusible. 

 This discovery will render the extraction of platinum from the ore more 

 perfect, and, by reducing its cost, will greatly facilitate its application to 

 the arts. 



It is little more than half a century since Geology assumed the distinctive 

 character of a science. Taking into consideration the aspects of nature in 

 different epochs of the history of the earth, it has been found that the study 

 of the changes at present going on in the world around us enable us to under- 

 stand the past revolutions of the globe, and the conditions and circumstances 

 under which strata have been formed and organic remains imbedded and 

 preserved. The geologist has increasingly tended to believe that the changes 

 which have taken place on the face of the globe, from the earliest times to 



