i873v 



Chemical Science. 427 



in illustrating the connection between the two, — also for military, engineering, 

 and sanitary purposes they will be no doubt exceedingly useful. 



CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 



With regret we record the death of two distinguished chemists — Drs. Liebig 

 and Bence Jones. Justus Liebig was born in the small German town of 

 Darmstadt, on May 13, 1803, and educated in Bonn and Erlangen. He was 

 originally intended for a pharmaceutist, but having found the means of 

 visiting Paris, and passing some time in the laboratories of the great French 

 chemists who flourished in the year 1823, and, having achieved a success as a 

 chemist, he was at once enrolled by Humboldt in the ranks of the German 

 professoriat, being in 1826 nominated Professor in Ordinary in the University 

 of Giessen, after having for the two preceding years held office as 

 Extraordinary Professor in the same University. Liebig left Giessen in the 

 year 1852, and went to Munich, where he became Professor of Chemistry in 

 the University and President of the Academy of Sciences. In 1845 ne had 

 been created a Baron. He died at Munich on the 18th of April. At a 

 meeting of the German Chemical Society, held in Berlin, on April 28th, it was 

 resolved to eredl a statue in honour of Liebig, and to invite his pupils, friends, 

 and chemists of all nations to contribute towards the funds necessary for that 

 objedt. Drs. Warren de la Rue, Frankland, Gilbert, Odling, Stenhouse, and 

 Williamson are members of the Committee, and communications and sub- 

 scriptions may be sent to Dr. Hugo Muller, no, Bunhill Row, E.C. The 

 distinguished secretary of the Royal Institution, Dr. H. Bence Jones, died on 

 the 20th of the same month after a long, and latterly, severe illness. His 

 treatise on the early history of the Royal Institution, and his valuable 

 biography of Faraday, are amongst the latest of his works. A movement 

 which was set on foot to get up a testimonial to Dr. Jones, will, in agreement 

 with his own wishes, take the form of a bust to be placed in the Royal Insti- 

 tution. 



Curious results followed some of the experiments made upon charred papers 

 and documents, and the examination of books in safes which proved worthless 

 in the great fire at Boston. It was found that what paper makers call poor 

 paper, paper considerably " clayed," stood the test best. Parchment paper, 

 used for bonds and legal documents, shrivelled up exceedingly, and the print 

 blistered so that it could be read when writing was illegible. So it was with 

 the engraved work on notes. The gilding on the account books burned and 

 charred showed out as bright and as clear as when the books were new, which 

 brings up the question if to introduce gilt-edged account books would not be 

 well, on the ground that the gilt would stay the passage of fire to the pages 

 within. Books crammed into a safe so that it was difficult to get them out, 

 suffered considerably less than those that were set in loosely, and in some 

 cases came out from safes, in which everything else was worthless, so far 

 preserved that the figures on their pages could be deciphered. With charred 

 papers, which could not be made transparent by any light whatever used, 

 it was found, after the employment of vitriol, oxalic acid, chalk, glycerine, and 

 other things, that anything that moistened them to a certain stage — to which 

 it was delicate work to get and not to pass — made the lines, words, and figures 

 legible through a magnifying glass. It has been the almost universal experi- 

 ence that lead pencil marks show out all right where ink marks cannot be dis- 

 tinguished. The success of the use of photography has already been noted. 



Mr. Elihu Thompson has made the observation that tin-foil, if wrapped 

 about a few crystals of chlorate of potassa, can be made to detonate loudly 

 upon being struck smartly with a hammer upon an anvil, or in a mortar ; the 

 phenomenon being precisely analogous to the well-known experiment of 

 triturating sulphur and the chlorate. 



In order to ascertain whether ground coffee has been mixed with either 

 roasted corn or amylaceous subscances generally, it is only necessary to treat 



