Report on the recent Progress of Chemistry. By Le Eoy 

 C. Cooley, Ph. D. 



[Read before the Institute, March 21, 1871, as a Report in part of the First 

 Class in the First Department — Physiology and Chemistry.] 



The chemistry of the past aimed to do little more than to 

 give mere descriptions of individual substances ; the chemis- 

 try of the present does this and at the same time seeks to 

 classify facts, and to develop the principles and laws ac- 

 cording to which, in nature, the composition and properties 

 of bodies have been determined. 



Chemists of the modern school are all practical chemists, 

 being all engaged in the experimental examination of the 

 composition of matter, and in the careful study of facts 

 thus revealed. All chemists, however, are not laboring 

 with exactly the same object in view. While one class is 

 using every new fact of discovery, in conjunction with those 

 already known, to establish or modify theories, and if pos- 

 sible to develop the truths that underlie all chemical ac- 

 tions, another class is endeavoring to turn the same facts to 

 useful purposes in the industries and the arts of life. The 

 object of this report is to illustrate the character and results 

 of the activity prevailing among chemists of the present day 

 in these two directions. 



The theories which have come to be regarded as the foun- 

 dation of chemical science, are just at the present time being 

 subjected to the most rigorous examination. 



Many years ago, Dalton, who could see no other way to 

 account for the numerical relations in chemistry, proposed 

 the atomic theory. This theory, modified from time to 

 time as new facts were developed, came to be very generally 

 regarded as the foundation of the science, so that Dr. 

 Williamson, in a late address before the Chemical Society 



