482 



mineral acids so much employed in medicine and the arts. In 

 his essays on the alkaline substances used in bleaching, he 

 pointed out the resinous nature of the colouring matter of 

 linen yarn, and established, as he conceived, the fact, — impor- 

 tant in a national point of view, — that the linen manufacture 

 of Ireland is altogether independent of foreign salts or ashes 

 for the purposes of bleaching. Next followed his experiments 

 on the proportions of carbon in bitumen and mineral coal, and 

 his essays on the analysis of soils, and the nature and manner 

 of action of the manures best suited to each locality. From 

 this enumeration of his chemical labours, they would appear to 

 have been chiefly directed to objects of immediate practical 

 utility. This, however, was not always the case, for he turned 

 special attention to one of the most difficult departments of the 

 doctrine of caloric, and communicated a table of specific heats, 

 which was published by Magellan, and had some celebrity. 



Chemists of the present time, who know in what a chaotic 

 state their science was in the days of Kirwan, will not hesitate 

 to award to him the merit of having been an acute reasoner 

 and a laborious experimenter ; and will not, looking to the 

 period in which he lived, consider it any serious reproach to 

 him, that he was a strenuous supporter to the last of the phlo- 

 gistic theory, which, however, it must be confessed he con- 

 tinued to maintain long after any satisfactory evidence could 

 be adduced in support of it. 



In the department of mineralogy the exertions of Mr. 

 Kirwan may be said to have had a national importance. To 

 him is undoubtedly due the merit of having introduced the 

 study into this country. The celebrated Leskean collection, 

 in the possession of the Dublin Society, was acquired through 

 Mr. Kirwan, who passed over to Germany for the purpose of 

 purchasing it; and, as Inspector- General of Irish mines, he 

 addressed an able memorial to the Irish Government, pointing 

 out the economic importance of mineralogical science, and 

 bespeaking for it support and encouragement. 



