502 REPOiiT— 1878. 



where the one begins and the other ends. The help that chemistry gives to physics is 

 shown by the numbers of chemists who have distinguished themselves as physicists. 

 I may mention a few belonging to our own time — Andrews, Bunsen, Faraday, Frank- 

 land, Graham, Guthrie, and Eegnault. 



With regard to mental discipline, the mind of the student is exercised* in both 

 the inductive and deductive methods of reasoning. His original faculties are stimu- 

 lated by the consciousness that he can in many cases readily test the worth of his 

 ideas by experiment. With inexpensive apparatus and a good balance, the intelli- 

 gent student can make out for himself some of the laws and many of the facts of the 

 science, and it may be, also, add to them. He glides insensibly from the known 

 to the unknown. Indeed his spirit of inquiry, demands, in most cases, to be curbed 

 rather than spurred. Some students are constantly finding out new methods of 

 analysis or discovering the precious metals in impossible places. 



The readiness with which we can cross over into the terra incognita of chemistry, 

 and make little explorations there, constitutes in my opinion the great charm of this 

 science, and, to a great extent, its value as an educational agent. What I wish to 

 insist upon is, that the student of chemistry can reach the field of original work 

 sooner than the student of most other sciences. Once he commences original re- 

 search, the developement of his intellectual faculties rapidly progresses. His imagi- 

 nation is daily exercised in propounding new theories, and devising experiments in 

 order to ascertain their truth or falsehood. And what more valuable intellectual 

 training can there be than the habit of subjecting our ideas to the test of inexorable 

 experiment ? In the world outside chemistry, we are, alas ! too ready to take 

 things for granted. The chemist's motto is, Prove all things. The ancients adopted 

 a different method: they assumed certain principles and reasoned from them. 

 They therefore did little in science. 



Chemistry promotes in a remarkable manner accuracy, thoroughness, and cir- 

 cumspection. An organic analysis requires six weighings : if any one of these is 

 inaccurate, the results are worthless. A qualitative test carelessly applied may 

 cause us, in a research, to waste months in the pursuit of a phantom or Will-o'-the- 

 Wisp which can have no corporeal existence. If we have to employ absolute 

 alcohol in our experiments, we must not be satisfied with going through the cere- 

 mony of making it absolute, but we must assure ourselves that it is absolute. 

 Unless we are sure of every step in our research, our results become doubtful, and 

 therefore of ho value. 



On the circumspection, also, of the original worker large demands are made. 

 The avenues by which error may creep in and vitiate his results are very numerous. 

 These he must foresee, and endeavour to close up. Laboratory work teaches us to 

 use our senses aright, sharpens our powers of observation, and prevents us from 

 reasoning rashly from appearances. It also promotes manual dexterity, and trains 

 the hands to work in subordination to the head. 



Perhaps in no other science is the student so deeply impressed with the order 

 and economy of nature, the immutability of her laws, and the exactness of her 

 operations. These impressions will, no doubt, in after Hfe impart seriousness to his 

 character, and save him from the adoption of many a wild theory. 



I come now to the effect of original work on the character. Many virtues are 

 necessary to the chemist— courage, resolution, truthfulness, and patience. He is 

 often obliged to perform experiments which are attended with great danger, and no 

 man can hope to fight long with the elements without carrying away many a scar. 

 Sometimes fatal accidents occur. Many years ago, Mr. Hennel, of the Apothecaries' 

 Hall, London, lost his life by the explosion of a fulminating powder which he was 

 preparing for the East India Company. And many of us recollect the sad death of 

 young Mr. Chapman, a distinguished chemist whom I had the pleasure of knowing, 

 who was literally blown to atoms while working in the Iiartz Mountains on a new 

 dynamite which he had himself discovered. I must tell the ladies, however, that 

 accidents are not always so disastrous, but that often one may escape with merely 

 the loss of an eye. But the chemist must uot be discouraged by fear of accident, 

 neither must he be disheartened by the temporary failure of his experiments, nor at 

 the slowness of his processes. Bunsen was obliged to evaporate 44 tons of the 

 waters of the Durcheim springs in order to obtain 200 grains of his new metal, 



