April 22, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



643 



granting them the dignity of that title. 

 They were private affairs, belonging either 

 to rich individuals with a taste for natural 

 philosophy, or to apothecaries, or to some 

 of these lecturers, who provided themselves 

 somehow or other, in spite of obstacles 

 nearly insurmountable, at their own cost, 

 with the means of experimenting. There 

 is a minute description of a laboratory, 

 evidently just such as it should be, in Dr. 

 Ure's 'Dictionary of Chemistry,' the Amer- 

 ican edition of which appeared in 1821. 

 A few sentences will suffice to give us a 

 picture of the laboratory of that day. 

 Dr. Ure tells us that, 'Many people think 

 that a laboratory level with the ground is 

 most convenient* * * but it is subject to 

 very great inconvenience from moisture.' 

 "In such a place, the inscriptions fall off 

 or are effaced; the bellows rot; the metals 

 rust; the furnaces molder, and everything 

 almost spoils." "In the laboratory a 

 chimney ought to be constructed, so high 

 that a person may easily stand under it, 

 and as extensive as is possible ; that is, from 

 one wall to another." "As charcoal only 

 is burnt under this chimney, no soot is col- 

 lected in it; and, therefore, it need not be 

 so wide as to allow a chimney-sweeper to 

 pass up into it." "Under the chimney, 

 at a convenient height, must be a row of 

 hooks driven into the back and side walls; 

 upon which are to be hung small shovels; 

 iron pans; tongs ; straight, crooked and 

 circular pincers; pokers; iron rods, and 

 other utensils for disposing the fuel and 

 managing the crucibles." "To the walls 

 of the laboratory ought to be fastened 

 shelves of different breadths and heights; 

 or these shelves may be suspended by 

 hooks." "The shelves are to contain glass 

 vessels, and the products of operations, 

 and ought to be in as great a number as 

 is possible." "In a laboratory where 

 many experiments are made there can not 

 be too many shelves." The detailed de- 



scription which he gives as to the necessary 

 equipment, not forgetting even 'a glue pot, 

 with its little brush,' and 'a good steel for 

 striking fire, ' is both amusing and interest- 

 ing, but these quotations are enough to 

 produce a fairly precise picture of a 'mod- 

 ern' chemical laboratory of 1820. 



We have another, and much more inter- 

 esting and historically valuable description 

 of one of these old laboratories, as it was 

 just before the marvelous rush forward 

 began. You will remember that Wohler, 

 forever famous as the first to break down 

 the apparently impenetrable barrier be- 

 tween inorganic substances and those 

 formed through processes of life and 

 growth, by making urea in the laboratory, 

 went, in 1823, to study and work with the 

 yet more famous Berzelius. He has left 

 us a description of the laboratory, which 

 was in Ber^ielius's own house. He says the 

 laboratory was 'close to the living rooms 

 and consisted of two ordinary rooms, most 

 simply fitted up; they contained no fur- 

 nace nor draft, no water nor gas pipes.' 

 "In one of the rooms stood two common 

 pine wood-working tables; Berzelius had 

 his working place at one, I mine, at the 

 other." "On the walls were some cup- 

 boards containing reagents, of which there 

 was no excessive variety, for I had to send 

 to Liibeck for some potassium ferrocyanide 

 when I needed it in my experiments." 

 "The arrangement for washing apparatus 

 consisted of a stone water jar, with a stop- 

 cock and slop jar beneath it." "The bal- 

 ances and other instruments were in the 

 second room, and near by there was also 

 a little workshop with a turning lathe." 

 "In the kitchen, where the austere old 

 Anna, cook and factotum to the northern 

 master who was then a bachelor, prepared 

 the meals, there stood a little furnace and 

 the sand-bath which was always kept hot." 

 And yet in these surroundings and with 

 these appliances Berzelius discovered sev- 



