2 Biographical Memoir of Count C. L. Berthollet, 
the limits of this notice will not permit us to analyse the various 
memoirs which Berthollet communicated to the Academy of 
Sciences and to the National Institute, we shall content our- 
selves with a general view of the discoveries which they contain. 
One of the earliest and most important subjects to which Ber- 
thollet directed his attention, was the analysis of Ammonia, the 
nature and the proportion of the elements of which he determined 
with a degree of accuracy which later researches have scarcely 
been able to improve. He resolved the pure gas into its ele- 
ments, by making it pass very slowly along an ignited porcelain 
tube, of a small diameter, — a method which has been more re- 
cently practised by Gay-Lussac. In finding ammonia in the 
products of animal substances, he was led to consider the prei 
sence of azote in organised bodies as the distinctive character of 
animality, and thus to make an important step in animal che- 
mistry. This valuable memoir was published among those of 
the Academy of Sciences for 1785 *. 
The observations which Scheele had published on the prussic 
acid, and its different combinations, though in every respect fine 
and interesting, were yet insulated and incomplete. M. Ber- 
thollet resumed the subject with peculiar success, and recog- 
nised in it a compound acid, in which oxygen did not exist. 
The next researches of our author related to the combinations 
of sulphur with hydrogen ; and though the new views which 
arose out of this inquiry met with considerable opposition, yet 
they were soon universally adopted. 
One of the most important discoveries by which M. Berthol- 
let is distinguished, is that of the application of the oxymuriatie 
acid to the purposes of bleaching. This acid was discovered 
by Scheele, but its properties were made known principally by 
the labours of our author. The application of this acid to the 
purposes of bleaching was discovered by Berthollet about the 
* In consequence of Sir Humphry Davy having stated it as his opinion, that 
oxygen was one of the constituents of ammonia, A. B. Berthollet, our author’s 
only son, afterwards analysed this gas, and confirmed the results previously ob- 
tained by his father. M. Berthollet sen. had found its composition to be 72.5 hy- 
drogen, and 27.5 azote, whereas his son found the oxygen to be 75.5, and the azote 
24.5. The memoir of M, Berthollet jun. was read to the Institute on the 24th 
March 1808. 
