Wells & Foote — One Hundred Years of Chemistry. 265 



analysis were concerned. There is no doubt that Ber- 

 zelius, whose atomic weight determinations have already 

 been mentioned, surpassed all other analysts of that time 

 in the amount, variety, and accuracy of his gravimetric 

 work. He lived through three decades of our period, 

 until 1848. 



During the past century there has been constant prog- 

 ress in inorganic analysis, due to improved methods, 

 better apparatus and accumulated experience. An 

 excellent work on this subject was published by H. Rose, 

 a pupil of Berzelius, and the methods of the latter, with 

 many improvements and additions by the author and 

 others, were thus made accessible. Fresenius, who was 

 born in 1818, did much service in establishing a labora- 

 tory in which the teaching of analytical chemistry was 

 made a specialty, in writing text-books on the subject 

 and in establishing in 1862 the "Zeitschrift fur analy- 

 tische Chemie," which has continued up to the present 

 time. 



Besides Berzelius, who was the first to show that min- 

 erals were definite chemical compounds, there have been 

 many prominent mineral analysts in Europe, among 

 whom Rammelsberg and Bunsen may be mentioned, but 

 there came a time towards the end of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury when the attention of chemists, particularly in Ger- 

 many, was so much absorbed by organic chemistry that 

 mineral analysis came near becoming a lost art there. 

 It was during that period that an English mineralogist, 

 visiting New Haven and praising the mineral analyses 

 that were being carried out at Yale, expressed regret that 

 there appeared to be no one in England, or in Germany 

 either, who could analyze minerals. 



The best analytical work done in this country in the 

 early part of our period was chiefly in connection with 

 mineral analysis, and a large share of it was published in 

 the Journal. Henry Seybert, of Philadelphia, in par- 

 ticular, showed remarkable skill in this direction, and 

 published numerous analyses of silicates and other min- 

 erals, beginning in 1822. It was he who first detected 

 boric acid in tourmaline (6, 155, 1822), and beryllium in 

 chrysoberyl (8, 105, 1824). His methods for silicate 

 analyses were very similar to those used at the present 

 time. 



J. Lawrence Smith in 1853 described his method for 



