622 
Extracts from British and Foreign Journals. 
PROGRESS OE CIIEMISTRy. 
The following constitutes the greater part of the excellent 
address delivered by Professor Williamson at the late meeting 
of the British Association for the Advancement of Science/^ 
held at Newcastle-on- 'fy ne. 
One of the most remarkable features of the progress of 
our science is the rapid rate at which materials have been 
accumulating by the labours of chemists in the so-called 
organic department of the science. The study of the trans¬ 
formation of organic bodies leads to the discovery of new 
acids, new bases, new alcohols, new ethers, and at a con¬ 
stantly increasing rate which is truly w’onderful. Some of 
these new substances are found to possess properties which can 
at once be applied to practical manufacturing purposes, such 
as dyeing, &c., but the greater number of them remain in our 
laboratories and museums and text-books, and serve to 
teach us new^ instances of the combining forces of matter. 
The influence of this rapid growth of materials upon our 
knowledge of principles and laws of combination which con¬ 
stitute the science of chemistry has been simultaneous with 
the discoveries of the materials themselves, and the material 
and intellectual progress of organic chemistry have gone on 
so regularly hand in hand that it is impossible to say which 
has done most in helping the other. It is, accordingly, 
observed that the science has been simplified by every im¬ 
portant addition to her materials; instead of isolated, un¬ 
meaning substances, wfith formulae so complex and unintelli¬ 
gible as to be troublesome to chemists and truly distressing 
to learners, we have now definite and intelligible families of 
bodies, of which the members are most harmoniously united 
together by some law of composition, and whose connection 
with neighbouring families is similarly clear and satisfactory. 
New discoveries are constantly coming in to fill up the gaps 
which still disfigure our growing system. In mineral or 
inorganic chemistry there is not the same scope for discovery 
at present, inasmuch as the elements which belong to it do 
not combine in those numerous proportions which occur 
among the chief elements of organic bodies. But yet mineral 
chemistry has not been standing still, for even the heavy 
