520 



NATURE 



{April i, 1880 



hand Urban Hjarne's work, "A Short Introduction to 

 Research into Various Kinds of Ores and Rocks, Minerals, 

 &c." (Stockholm, 1694), fortunately written not for the 

 learned but for searchers for ore, unfolds practical views 

 of the subject, and he has in reality connected his name 

 with several new observations in science. Not till after 

 ;720, however, did there commence among us in this 

 field a new period. As early as 1730 Bromell published 

 a little, modest but serviceable Mineralogy, which enables 

 us easily to understand the standpoint of the science at 

 that date. Afterwards Linnaeus included the mineral 

 kingdom along with the others in his " Systema Naturae " 

 (first edition, 1735), and attempted to apply in that branch 

 of knowledge the method of going to work which he had 

 used with such success in describing and arranging the 

 products of the animal and vegetable kingdoms. In this 

 way at a later date he gave the exciting touch to De 

 Lisle's work, which created an era in this field. The 

 method of Linnaeus was followed by Gottskalk Wallerius, 

 who published in 1747 the first real Handbook of Mine- 

 ralogy, a work incomparably better than anything that 

 had been written on this branch of knowledge since the 

 time of Agricola. For not only in it was collected all that 

 was previously known in science, but the work was rich 

 in new discoveries. Yet Wallerius still places among the 

 true species of minerals, petrifactions and stone-like con- 

 cretions from the animal and vegetable kingdoms, pearls, 

 hair-balls, &c. 



It was reserved for Cronstedt to sweep these matters 

 out of mineralogy, and thus draw a correct boundary line 

 between the products of the mineral and animal kingdoms, 

 and to lay the foundation of geognosy by making a proper 

 distinction between minerals and rocks. The work in 

 which these new discoveries were brought together was 

 published, without the author's name, at Stockholm in 

 1758, under the title, "An Essay on Mineralogy; or, an 

 Exposition of the Mineral Kingdom," afterwards re- 

 printed in a new edition and translated into Danish, 

 English, and German (two editions). In order to give an 

 idea of the revolution in science which Cronstedt carried 

 through, not without violent opposition, I take the follow- 

 ing extract from the polemic introduction to his work : — 



" Sand is in itself nothing else than small stones, and 

 therefore, if we give sand a place by itself we ought to 

 do the same to pebbles, to earthfast stones, and lastly 

 to rocks. This is just a mulliplicatio entium prater 

 necessitated. 



" Stones of beasts and fishes are composed partly of 

 phlogiston, salts, and a small proportion of earth, partly 

 of the same matter as the bones of animals, and there is 

 therefore no more reason for including them in a mineral 

 system than the stones of fruits. Soot, tartar, yeast, and 

 such like are too nearly related to the vegetable kingdom. 

 . . . Hair-balls and hat-stuff are so far different that the 

 former is felted together in the entrails of animals per 

 motuni peristalticum, and the latter by the industry of 

 human hands. May we suppose, then, that hair-balls 

 and animal-stones cannot be included among relicta 

 animalia ? . . . Meanwhile I flatter myself that those 

 who will follow the introduction here given will not be 

 put to so much trouble with the matters belonging to the 

 mineral kingdom as has happened to myself and others 

 from previously published systems, and that I thus will 

 get some defender against those who are so infected with 

 figuromania and taste for outside work that they are 

 offended at the presumption of passing off marble as 

 limestone, and of placing porphyry among rocks." 



This introduction is distinctive of the reform which 

 Cronstedt carried through in mineralogy, and it is dis- 

 tinctive of the standpoint of science before Cronstedt's 

 time that the alteration, so necessary and self-evident as 

 it now appears to be, at first aroused controversy and 

 opposition. To this it conduced in its degree that Cron- 

 stedt in general fixed less attention on the outward 



appearance of minerals than on their chemical properties, 

 to ascertain which he employed the blowpipe with great 

 skill and success. Numerous were the new discoveries 

 with which in this way he enriched the science, and 

 during a quarter of a century his " Essay on Mineralogy " 

 was an unsurpassed chef-d'auvre. 



Two years after Cronstedt's death Wallerius retired 

 from his professorship of chemistry in the University of 

 Upsala, and after a lively contest the post was assigned 

 to Thorbern Bergman (born 1735, died 1784), then 

 mathematical assistant. He had not previously made 

 himself known by any cliemical writings, but from that 

 time he devoted himself with such industry and success 

 to chemical research that within a short time he won for 

 himself a European reputation and the name of being 

 the first chemist of his time. His researches embraced 

 nearly all branches of the chemical science of the period ; 

 everywhere he dragged new facts into light or corrected 

 older erroneous statements. Space permits me here only 

 to point to his development of the new chemical analysis 

 in the wet way, and the researches he carried out by the 

 new methods on the most dissimilar substances, for 

 instance on different kinds of iron, by which the composi- 

 tion of pig iron, malleable iron, and steel was first ascer- 

 tained, on precious stones and siliceous minerals, on a 

 number of salts, &c. ; to his comprehensive research on 

 carbonic acid (called by him atmospheric acid), whereby 

 the discoveries of Black, Macbride, and Cavendish 

 relating to this exceedingly important substance were 

 considerably extended and the foundation of the chemistry 

 of carbonic acid laid ; to his analyses of mineral waters, 

 in which even their gaseous constituents were estimated ; 

 to his examination of the salts of bismuth, zinc, lead, 

 nickel, gold, platinum, and magnesia ; to his services to 

 organic chemistry ; and finally to his laborious investiga- 

 tion of the laws of chemical attraction, which are still 

 recognised in the science, though in a form much altered, 

 by the labours of Berthollet and others. Bergman also 

 did great service to mineralogy by his comprehensive 

 analytical researches and by his " Sciagraphia Regni 

 Mineralis," the best systematic work on mineralogy since 

 the time of Cronstedt. 1 



Finally, we may further state that Wallerius and Berg- 

 man were the founders of agricultural chemistry, the 

 former by his disputation, "Agricultural fundamenta 

 Chemica," published in 1761, in Latin and Swedish ; the 

 latter through a work, " De Terris Geoponicis," which was 

 communicated to the Academy at Montpellier, and for 

 which he received a prize in 1773. An incalculable 

 service has also been conferred by the Swedish chemists 

 on the development of scientific agriculture by their 

 pointing out the common occurrence of phosphorus in 

 nature, in the mineral kingdom by Gahn in 1780, in the 

 bones of animals by Gahn or Scheele before 177 1.* 



Carl Wilhelm Scheele lived and worked at the same 

 time as Bergman. He did not possess the many-sided 

 learning and deep theoretical insight of the Upsala 

 professor, but, instead, an unsurpassed power of scientific 

 divination, which enabled him, the young apothecary, to 

 mark nearly every year of his short period of activity by 

 "original contributions to chemical science, which, by 

 the influence they exerted on industry, metallurgy, and 

 agriculture, contributed more powerfully than diplomatic 

 negotiations or pitched battles to the development of the 



1 Bergman's works were for the most part published in the first place as 

 academic disputations or in the Transactions of the Swedish Academy of 

 Sciences, but they were afterwards collected in "Opuscula Physica et 



Chemica," 6 vol Upsala, 1779. '1 here are numerous translations into foreign 



languages. 



- Phosphoric acid, as is well known, forms a constituent in most manures. 

 It was first discovered by the Hamburger Brand (not to be mistaken for 

 George Brandt) in toft), and, when he kept his discovery secret, a second time 

 by Kunkel (German chemist, foi the last twenty-five years of his life mining 

 counsellor in Stockholm, and ennobled by Charles XI. under the name of 

 Lowenstern). That the generally-occurring mineral apatite contains 

 phosphoric acid was discovered by Klaproth and Proust in 1788. Jhat 

 bone, horn, &c, may be used as manures was known to Bergman (sec 

 Opuscula, v. page 106). 



