128 
possible space nets, and their relation to 
existing crystalline forms, coming at a 
more favorable time, led almost immedi- 
ately to the completion of development 
along this line by Sohneke (1867). 
In the same address, he continues: 
[The chemist] is surely unapt, who has made a 
mass of experiments, but, in the effort to secure 
quickly accessible products, hastens to the attain- 
ment of this as his sole goal; he overlooks those 
phenomena and changes occurring in his opera- 
tions which might lead to the explanation of 
nature’s secrets. 
If this viewpoint, with its contempt for 
purely preparative chemistry, had been as 
prominent in the creed of all the chemists 
of the century and a half since Lamonos- 
soff’s time, as it was in his own, instead of 
being until recently the ideal of only a 
few scattered chemists, what a different 
science ours would have been. How many 
papers, signed by notable names, might 
have offered something of substantial 
scientific value, in place of a mass of new 
entries for the indexes of Beilstein and 
Dammer. In the preface to his treatise 
on saltpeter, he develops the same idea: 
Since as yet no general physical bases for ex- 
plaining the formation and composition of chem- 
ical substances exist, and since few physical ex- 
periments have been applied in chemistry so as to 
lead to the desired results, it may seem difficult, 
but we believe it to be possible, scientifically to 
describe the greater part of chemistry in terms of 
the interrelations of its own principles and their 
connections with those of physics. We do not 
doubt that, after the union of chemical with 
physical truths, we shall be able more successfully 
to understand the inner nature of substances. 
Be it understood, these generalities are 
only summaries of the plans of study 
which, in his experimental work and in 
his papers, he attempts in thoroughgoing 
fashion to put into practise. Uttered as 
they were in the heart of the period of 
phlogiston, of heat-matter, and of con- 
fused experimentation and reasoning, they 
SCIENCE 
[N.S. Vou. XXXV. No. 891 
have an uncanny sound, and almost terrify 
us with their supernatural prescience. 
How long have we had to await the psy- 
chological moment for the general appli- 
cation of these ideas! Had only the times 
been ripe; had only the atmosphere been 
healthy for the propagation of such ideas 
as his, instead of being virulently poison- 
ous to them, our science might easily, by 
now, have been a hundred years ahead of 
its present position, and we might to-day 
have been listening to papers which, as it 
is, will not be read for a century. If 
Dante’s Divina Commedia were to be re- 
vised by a chemist and brought up to date, 
the chief change he would make would be 
the provision of some horrible and revolt- 
ing torment, calculated to give Stahl his 
just deserts. 
The occasion is not a suitable one for 
going in detail into the mass of (for that 
time) novel and suggestive quantitative 
physico-chemical experiments which occu- 
pied Lomonossoff from 1752 to 1756. The 
extent of his plans—only partially fulfilled 
—may be judged from his ‘‘Dromus ad 
veram chymiam physicam’’ (Course in true 
Physical Chemistry, 1752), of which a 
considerable part was written, and much 
survives. In the introduction he mentions, 
amongst other aims of physical chemistry, 
this: y 
One must determine the specific properties of 
every substance as exactly as possible, in order 
that, after the composition has been ascertained 
by chemical operations, one may judge whether, 
and to what extent, each property is altered by 
changing a given constituent. 
No statement of one of the purposes of 
physical chemistry could be clearer. 
In the experimental part of the book, 
salt solutions receive much attention, and 
many modern problems may be recognized, 
such as measurement of exact solubilities 
at various temperatures, volume changes 
in solutions, capillary phenomena, action 
