324 M. Fischer’s Memoir of the Life of Klaproth. 
more adapted to draw the attention of the public at large ; but 
the latter is of infinitely greater consequence to science. Pas- 
sirg by the numberless small expedients which Klaproth de- 
vised for procuring a more unmixed deposition and separation 
of all kinds of matters, we only notice at present that he enrich- 
ed experimental chemistry with two new methods of analysis, 
which are unlimited in their applications. 
The first of these was the complete resolution of the hardest mi- 
nerals, by means of fluid caustic alkali, instead of the former treat- 
ment with dry caustic alkali, which had introduced the use of silver 
crucibles and saucers into experimental chemistry. The com- 
plete resolution of the hardest stones, by this method of analy- 
sis, has enabled us to ascertain, with extreme accuracy, the 
quantity of earths, oxydes, metals, and even of acids, which 
minerals contain. Exact analyses of this kind remain sure for 
ever, and are of importance to the science, independent of any 
discoveries which may be made, respecting the particular nature 
of the substances mentioned. As, for instance, the capability of 
being decomposed, which was afterwards discovered to belong to 
the earths, makes not one cypher incorrect or superfluous in such 
analysis. The advantage of this method is particularly evident 
in the decomposition of corundum or diamond-spar. As Kla- 
proth first attempted the analysis of these bodies, by the former 
method of decomposition, he found a considerable remainder of 
matter unaccounted for. On the suspicion, which he then ex- 
pressed, that this remainder might perhaps be a new, and yet un- 
discovered earth, many compilers of school books were in a 
hurry to admit the earth of corundum into the list of the simple 
earths. But when Klaproth repeated the analysis, by means of 
the liquid alkali, he found, that this substance was one of the 
many compositions of siliceous and argillaceous earths, which 
had not previously been known, and which in former analyses 
had sometimes been referred to the one kind of earth, and at 
other times to the other. In the same mamier, the chemists of 
England gave an account of a species of sand, which had been 
brought from New Holland, as a new earth ; but Klaproth 
shewed, by his new method of analysis, that this body also, 
which had already been introduced into introductory treatises, 
under the name of 44 the Austral Earth,” was nothing but an in- 
