5i8 



NATURE 



{April i, 1 88c 



in different phases, may lead to a fuller explanation of the 

 ' 'acceleration coefficients " of Harcourt and Esson. 

 These chemists found that the change formulated 



H 2 2 + 2HI = 2H 2 + Ij 

 was accelerated to a definite extent by addition of 

 sulphuric or hydrochloric acid, but that the accelerating 

 value of each acid was different. The " acceleration coeffi- 

 cients," which they suggested might profitably be found 

 for classes of salts, would measure the changes in the 

 energies of the systems, brought about by the addition of 

 the salts used. 



The work of Prof. Gibbs will probably tend to modify 

 the views generally held with regard to the meaning of 

 constitutional or structural formula;, and to lead us to 

 regard these formulas as crude representations of the 

 configuration of the molecule when it has passed into the 

 phase preceding that of absolute instability, rather than 

 of its configuration when it is unacted on by matter in a 

 phase different from it 5 own, and is therefore itself in a 

 phase of absolute stability. 



Of course the possibility of predicating a general de- 

 composition for a group of compounds, shows that these 

 compounds all tend to pass— under the influence of one 

 and the same reagent — into analogous unstable phases, 

 and that their structure, before contact with the reagent, 

 is therefore probably analogous. 



Prof. Gibbs has shown how the laws of energy may be 

 applied to the solution of chemical problems, and in doing 

 this he has opened a new path of advance, and has sup- 

 plied a guide long sought for by students of chemistry. 

 M. M. Pattison Muir 



A LEAF FROM THE HISTORY OF SWEDISH 

 NATURAL SC/EA'CE 1 



I. 

 T5EFORE the Era of Freedom (1721, 1772) Sweden 

 ■*-' had produced only four men who had earned for 

 themselves a recognised name in the history of the natu- 

 ral sciences by discoveries in the field of natural research. 

 These were Sigfrid Aron Forsius, 2 unfortunate in his pre- 

 dictions, author of a Mineralogy which had an extensive 

 sale, but is full of superstition, and did not advance the 

 science in any noteworthy degree ; the quarrelsome and 

 whimsical Upsala professor, Olof Rudbcck, 3 who, at the 

 age of twenty-five, published his discovery of the lymph- 

 atic vessels ; the physician of European reputation, Urban 

 Hjaerne, 4 superintendent of one of the first State labo- 

 ratories established for scientific investigation, famous for 

 his researches regarding mineral waters, the increase of 

 weight in metals on their oxidation, and formic acid, the 

 discoverer of several new minerals, &c. ; the afterwards 

 so renowned mystic Emanuel Swcdenborg, 5 known in the 

 history of the natural sciences for various geological 

 treatises of great excellence, considering the period when 

 they were written, for a remarkable work on atomicity, for 

 several crystallographical researches, for the largest and 

 most complete handbook on metallurgy, &c. 



These formed the whole contribution that Sweden, 

 during her period of greatness, was able to make in this 



1 Transited from a paper by Prof. A. E. Nordenskjold, of St ickholm. 



2 Bom at Hclsjngf rs after the middle of the sixteenth century ; died 1637. 



3 Born 1630. died 17^2. His discrvery of the lymphatic vessels was 

 published in 1653. 



4 Born 1641 ; died at Stockholm in 1724 



5 Kwedenborg was born in 168S ; died in 1772. The greater portion of his 

 period of activity iheref .re falls under the Era of Freedom, but most of his 

 .scientific works were published before 1721, among them his " Prodromus 

 Princlpiorum Kerum Naturahum," in which, among other things, he attempts 

 to explain the physical pioperlies of bjdies, on the suppo-irion that they are 

 composed of an endless number of minute atoms. His great metallurgic 

 wciks mere first published in 1734. In the Transactions of the Royal 

 Academy of Sciences he pubhshe-J. as late as 1763. a " Description of a 

 Method of Inlaying I aides and other Furniture with Marble." free from all 

 rnystiasui. '1 he table described in this paper is slill preserved at the office 

 of the Swedish Board of Trade. 



field. Here up in the remote north we had, as far as 

 scientific research is concerned, remained completely un- 

 disturbed by the discoveries of Copernicus, Descartes, 

 Leibnitz, and Newton, nay, even the original researches 

 of Danish men of science such as Tycho Brahe, Steno, 

 Bartholinus, and Rocmer, had awakened no fruitful 

 response on our side of the Sound. 



There came, however, another period. Our short dream 

 of greatness had come to a bloody termination. Of the 

 Sweden formerly so powerful there remained but a 

 maimed, depopulated nucleus, impoverished by perpetual 

 war, whose part in the labour of the development of the 

 race appeared to have been long ago played out. No 

 glorious interference in the field of politics was any 

 longer possible. But instead there began here, in the 

 peaceful field of science, labours attended with such 

 success that the history of other countries can scarcely 

 show anything corresponding to it. 



Our native country, where, as I have just pointed out, 

 there was previously scarcely any scientific research, was 

 for two decades after the peace of Nystad (1721) as fruit- 

 ful in this field as any cultured state whatever, and some 

 ten years later occupied the first rank in zoology and 

 botany through Linnaeus, in mineralogy through Wallerius 

 and Cronstedt, in chemistry through Brandt, Cronstedt, 

 Scheffer, Bergman, Scheele. There were also valuable con 

 tributions to the development of physics from Wassenius, 

 Klingenstjerna, Hjorter, Celsius, Wargentin, Wilke, &c, 

 and to the knowledge of our globe through Bergman's 

 excellent "Description of the Globe," and the travels of 

 the numerous pupils of Linnaeus. Remarkably enough, 

 this period of greatness in the field of research is almost 

 conterminous in time with that " Era of Freedom" which 

 is often depicted in so dark colours by our writers of 

 history. It was clearly born of the spirit which accom- 

 panied the new constitution, and it got its death blow at 

 the revolution by which Gustavus III. is said to have 

 " saved the country." 



The object of this paper is to contribute to the history 

 of our civilisation a sketch of the influence which Swedish 

 men of science of that age exerted on the development of 

 chemistry and mineralogy. 



The line of the great men of science from that period is 

 headed by George Brandt, Councillor of Mines and 

 Superintendent of the Laboratory of the Mining Board at 

 Stockholm (born 1694, died 1768). 



During the seventeenth century and the beginning of 

 the eighteenth most of the writings of authors on chemistry 

 still contain an unintelligible confusion of endless con- 

 siderations concerning the way in which the bodies on 

 the earth's surface are composed of certain supposed 

 primitive substances, for instance, according to the school 

 of Aristotle, of fire, earth, water, and air ; according to 

 Basil Valentine and Paracelsus, of certain elementary 

 principles — salt, sulphur, and quicksilver. The service of 

 having shown the groundlessness of these fancies is to be 

 ascribed to the great English savant, Robert Boyle (died 

 1691). In opposition to his predecessors, he laid down 

 the fundamental prin:iple that the chemist ought to con- 

 sider every body as simple which w ith the means at his 

 disposal he cannot chemically decompose, a principle 

 which indeel took from chemistry much of the glitter of 

 learning with which it before was bedecked, and which in 

 the'ees of philosopher reduced this science to an art of 

 cookery, which in any case, when the old creations of 

 fancy, constructed/with so much trouble and subtlety, were 

 blown away, gave the science a stable foundation to build 

 on. Boyle's fundamental principle has since been further 

 developed, and now forms one of the corner-stones of the 

 modern chemistry — although it must be admitted that it 

 is little in accordance with the simplicity which otherwise 

 prevails in nature, that the material world should consist 

 of more than sixty different elements. Certain it is in 

 any case that the elements in question, at least for the 



