TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 53 



chemical science in this country. The number of original papers communicated to 

 the Society during the last year has far exceeded tliat of previous years ; during 

 last year fifty-eight papers were read to the Society, whereas the average number 

 for the last three years is only twenty-nine. Fm-ther, I may say there is every 

 appearance of this increased activity not only continuing but even increasing. 

 Another matter connected with the Society deserves a passing word : I mean its 

 removal from its old rooms at Burlington House, which afforded it very insufficient 

 accommodation, to its new ones in the same building. This transference, which is 

 now taking place, will give to the Society a great increase of accommodation, and 

 thus admit of larger audiences attending the lectures, of the proper development 

 of the library, and of the full illustration, by experiment, of the communications 

 made to it. These improvements must act most beneticially on the Society, and 

 stimulate its future development. Even now it numbers some 700 members, and 

 certainly is not one of the least active or least useful of the many scientific societies 

 in London. 



Since our last Meeting at Brighton we have lost the most renowned of modern 

 chemists, Liebig. His intiueuce on chemistry through a long and most active life 

 has yet to be written. Publishing his first paper fifty years ago, it is difficult for 

 chemists of the present day to realize the changes in chemical thought, in chemical 

 knowledge, and in chemical experiment which he lived through, and was, more 

 than any other chemist, active in promoting. His activity was unwearied; he 

 communicated no less than 317 papers to difierent scientific journals; and almost 

 every branch of chemistry received some impetus from his hand. 



Liebig took an active interest in this Association ; and I believe the last paper he 

 wrote was one in answer to a communication made at the Inst Meeting of this 

 Association. On two occasions he attended Meetings of the British Association, 

 and has communicated many papers to this Section. The Meeting at Liverpool in 

 1837 was the first at which he was present ; he then communicated to this Section 

 a paper on the products of the decomposition of Uric Acid, and, further, gave an 

 account of his most important discovery, made in conjunction with Wohler, of the 

 artificial formation of Urea. At this JNleeting Liebig was requested to prepare a 

 report on the state of our knowledge of isomeric bodies. This request, although 

 often repeated, was never complied with. He was also requested to report on the 

 state of Organic Chemistry and Organic Analysis; thus our Section was evidently 

 desirous of giving him full occupation. At the Meeting in 1840, at Glasgow, a 

 paper on Poisons, Contagions, and Miasms, by Liebig, was read ; it was, in fact, an 

 abstract of the last chapter in his book on Chemistry in its applications to Agi-icul- 

 ture and Physiology ; and the work itself appeared about the same time, dedicated 

 to this Association. In his dedication Liebig says: — "At one of the meetings of 

 the Chemical Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, - 

 the honourable task of preparing a Report upon the State of Organic Chemistry 

 was imposed upon me. In this present work 1 present the Association with a part 

 of this Report." 



At the next Meeting, which was at Plymouth in 1841, there was an interesting 

 letter from Liebig to Dr. Playfair, read to our Section ; in it, among other matters, 

 Liebig describes an " excellent method," devised by Drs. ^Vill and Varrentrapp, for 

 determining the amount of nitrogen in organic bodies: he also says, "we have re- 

 peated all the experiments of Dr. Brown on the production of silicon from paracya- 

 uogen, but we have not been able to confirm one of his results ; what our experi- 

 ments prove is, that paracj'anogen is decomposed by a strong heat into nitrogen 

 gas and a residue of carbon,' which is exceedingly difficult of combustion," 



To the next Meeting (which was at Manchester, and Dalton was the President 

 of this Section) Dr. Playfair communicated an abstract of Prof. Liebig's report on 

 Organic Chemistry applied to Physiology and Pathology : this abstract is printed in 

 our ' Proceedings ;' and the complete work is looked upon as the second pait of the 

 report on Organic Chemistry. This Association may therefore fairly consider that 

 it exercised some influence on Liebig in the production of the most important 

 works that he wrote. Playfair's abstract must have been listened to with the greatest 

 interest ; and I doubt not the statements made were sharply criticised, especially 

 by the physiologists then at Manchester. Playfair concludes his abstract in these 



