M. Fischer’s Me moir of the Life of Klaproth. 327 
The great care which Klaproth employed in securing the 
neatness of his experiments, was not the least of his merits, not 
only because the great confidence which his labours deserve rests 
chiefly upon this circumstance, but also because in this he was 
a pattern to all practical chemists. 
To this quality must be referred the attention which he be- 
stowed on his instruments. When he had to do with very hard 
minerals, he used a mortar of flint, but he previously analysed 
it, and did not neglect the small and scarcely perceptible in- 
crease of weight which the matter under examination derived 
from continued rubbing, and, according to the differences of 
the substances that were before him, it was by no means a mat- 
ter of little moment in his estimation, whether the pounding 
which was always continued till the body was reduced to an 
impalpable powder was conducted in vessels of flint, of calce- 
dony, of glass, of serpentine, or of metal. And when he ope- 
rated with fire, he always selected his vessels, whether of earthen- 
ware, of glass, of graphite, of iron, of silver, or of platina, 
upon fixed principles, and shewed more distinctly than chemists 
had previously been aware, what an effect the vessel often has 
upon the result. Not less important was the extreme care 
which he used in preparing pure reagents, for obtaining which 
in their most perfect state, he invented several efficient methods. 
Nor must we pass unnoticed his scientific manner, both in oral 
delivery and in composition. His language was simple and un- 
adorned, but clear, well defined, and condensed. He never 
used more words than were absolutely necessary for a complete 
elucidation of the matter in hand. He rather pointed out than 
entered into any discursive exhibition of the grounds of his 
operations, — in general, he employed few reasonings, and only 
a simple statement of the essential circumstances of an experi- 
ment and of its consequences. It was particularly remarkable 
in him, however, that neither in his oral communications, nor in 
writing, neither in plain words nor by hints, did he ever at- 
tempt to exalt his own discoveries, or to bring them nearer either 
to the eye or the ear of his hearers. His pupils never heard 
from his own mouth how much science had been indebted to 
him, so utterly averse was he to all vanity, all boasting, and all 
selfishness. In a word, truth and science were every thing 
