April I, 1880] 



NATURE 



5i9 



present, cannot be decomposed or transmuted into one 

 another either by the most powerful decomposing agents, 

 by the vital forces of plants, or by fire, or by elec- 

 tricity. They thus form the raw material of which 

 everything in nature, whether living or inanimate, is 

 composed. In such circumstances it is clear that an 

 accurate knowledge of these elements forms the first con- 

 dition for the development of chemiscry, and that the 

 discovery of a new ele:nent must often be of such import- 

 ance as to form an epoch in the history of the science. 



This was especially the case at first, when many of the 

 elements that occur most generally in nature, and there 

 play a very important part, were yet unknown, and when 

 nearly every new discovery in that field' presupposed a 

 new method of research which could also be employed in 

 other directions. Many questions, too, which now appear 

 self-evident were formerly very difficult of investigation 

 on account of the faulty methods of research which were 

 then generally employed. The history of chemistry 

 during the last century shows that the Swedish school of 

 chemistry was the first that taught the chemist to question 

 nature in the right way, and to arrange his experiments 

 so that to a proper question he got a proper answer. 

 Urban Hjaerne may be considered as the founder of this 

 school, Brandt as the eldest of his pupils who took part 

 in the development of the science. 



The first chemical work by which Brandt gained for 

 himself an honoured name in the history of chemistry was 

 his researches " De Arsenico," and " De semi-metallis," 

 published in Acta litteraria ct scicntiarum Succice ( Upsala, 

 •733 and 1735), in which he showed, among other things, 

 that arsenic, with reference to which the views generally 

 entertained were uncertain and hesitating, must, on 

 account of its physical and chemical properties, be 

 considered a (semi) metal, whose "kalk" is the white 

 arsenic (arsenious acid). Of great importance for the 

 mineral chemistry of that period was also Brandt's 

 research on zinc, by which he showed that galmeja and 

 blende are ores of zinc, and galitzenstein its vitriol.' We 

 have him, besides, to thank for important investigations 

 into the causes of cold- and red-shortness in iron, in the 

 course of which he for the first time makes a proper 

 distinction between these two defects, gives a correct 

 explanation of the cause of red-shortness, and, as far as 

 cold-shortness is concerned, comes very near the truth. 

 Further, Brandt published repeated extensive researches 

 regarding the vegetable and mineral alkalies, in which, 

 among other things, he shows (1756) that common salt 

 contains the same alkali as soda, but saltpetre, on the 

 other hand, a vegetable alkali. Thereby the objections 

 were repelled which various chemists had made to the 

 masterly research of the Frenchman, Duhamel du Mon- 

 ceau, published twenty years before, " Sur le base du 

 scl marin." 



Brandt, however, is most renowned in the history of 

 chemistry for his discovery of the metal cobalt. The 

 distinguished German mineralogist Agricola, who died in 

 1555, speaks of certain minerals which, in consequence 

 of their silver-like appearance, were mistaken for silver 

 ores, but which, when an attempt was made to smelt 

 them, only gave off a poisonous smoke, but yielded no 

 noble metal. They were therefore looked upon by the 

 superstitious miners of that time as silver ores which had 

 been changed by mountain goblins or " kobolds," and 

 were thrown away as valueless, until a German glass 

 manufacturer, Schurer, in the middle of the fifteenth 

 century, discovered that they could be used to give a 

 beautiful blue colour to glass. No thorough examination 

 of the blue colouring matter, however, was made until 

 Brandt, in his "Dissertatio de Semi-metallis," published 



1 It is distinctive of the then standpoint of the science, and of the 

 importance which discoveries that now appear of little moment had for its 

 development, that even so late as 1725 the experienced Saxon mineralogist, 

 suspicion that blende, which is of common occurrence 



> n '7351 showed that it contained a peculiar metal, which 

 he named cobalt. In the cobalt ores formerly known 

 this metal was combined with arsenic, but in 1742 Brandt 

 examined a cobalt ore from Riddarhyttan, in Westman- 

 land, which was found to be free of arsenic, and after- 

 wards obtained the name Linneit. Nearly fifty years 

 after the publication of Brandt's first paper doubts were 

 cast by foreign chemists on the existence of the new 

 metal on the ground of erroneous experiments. 



Next in order to George Brandt among distinguished 

 Swedish chemists comes Henrik Theophilus Scheffer, 

 assayer of the mint at Stockholm, born 17 10, died 1759. 

 His most famous work is a research on " The White 

 Gold, or Seventh Metal, called in Spain Platina del 

 Pinto" (Trans, of the Swedish Academy of Sciences, 

 1752), in which Scheffer shows by a complete series of 

 experiments that this " wild American variety of silver" 

 forms a new noble metal. Two years before the same 

 substance, which had long been known to the Spaniards, 

 was referred to as a semi-metal, yet without any further 

 clearing up of its chemical properties. In consequence 

 of the many mystic conceptions, not yet completely 

 rooted out, which, from the time of the alchemists, were 

 connected with the idea "noble metal, the ascertaining 

 of the chemical nature of the "white gold" contributed 

 more than could have otherwise been expected to extend 

 and confirm the sound and truly scientific direction which 

 in a couple of decades became predominant in chemical 

 research in our country. We have besides Scheffer to 

 thank for important improvements in the art of assaying 

 gold and silver, and for an excellent series of lectures in 

 chemistry, published by Thorbern Bergman from notes 

 taken by Alstromer, for the first time in 1775, sixteen 

 years after Scheffer's death, and since several times 

 reprinted both in the Swedish and in foreign languages. 



A year before the publication of Scheffer's first paper 

 on platinum the Transactions of the Swedish Academy 

 of Sciences contained another impottant research, " Ex- 

 periments made with a Species of Ore from Loos Cobalt 

 Mines," by Axel Frederic Cronstedt. These mines had 

 a century before been taken in hand by Kalmeter, and the 

 ore at first yielded a good zaffre. But it socn appeared 

 that part of the ore was impure. It was examined by 

 Cronstedt. and found to contain not cobalt, but a new 

 metal. This new metal Cronstedt afterwards found in 

 various other minerals, among others in a German 

 mineral, Kopparnickel, a copper ore changed by a wicked 

 mountain goblin, " Niccol." The new metal, which has 

 now many practical applications, was called nickel, and 

 was immediately, in accordance with the requirements of 

 science, carefully examined, and the tests for it ascertained 

 by Cronstedt. To show what difficulties attended such 

 investigations at that period it may be pointed out that 

 Buffon in 1777 considered platinum an alloy of gold and 

 iron, and that Sage, renowned in France as an analytical 

 chemist, in 1772, and De Lisle even in 1783, considered 

 koppar-nickel a cupriferous ore. Even in 1S01 Haiiy did 

 not consider it fully established that nickel was a distinct 

 metal. Further, it ought to be mentioned in connection 

 with Cronstedt's chemical activity that he was the first to 

 draw attention to a mineral, " Bastnas tungsten," from 

 Bastniis mines in Westmanland, in which Berzelius, 

 Hisinger, and Klaproth in 1803 discovered cerium, and 

 Mosander in 1839 and 1843 lanthanum and didymium. 

 Cronstedt's special greatness, however, did not lie in the 

 field of chemical but of mineralogical research. Here he 

 prepared the way for the new era. 



It was natural that a certain practical skill in distinguish- 

 ing minerals and ores should speedily be developed in a 

 country so rich in mines as Sweden. We scarcely find a 

 trace of it, however, in the older Swedish literature, for 

 the Mineralogy of Aron Forsius is full to overflowing of 

 the sayings of Arabian authors, but contains only notes 

 on nature studies within the land itself. On the other 



