4 
ON CHEMISTRY. 
was believed to be a pure, simple, micompounded element; and yet 
its decomposition and re-formation have been going on without inter¬ 
ruption or cessation throughout nature, ever since the developenient 
of the first ray of light. The compound nature of water was deter¬ 
mined beyond a doubt, by several philosophers, about the year 1781, 
when the immortal Lavoisier detailed his discovery, in theMemoires 
of the French academy. 
A series of experiments, analytical as well as synthetical, were 
decisive, not only of the real components of the fluid, but of the pro¬ 
portions, by weight and measure, almost to exactitude, in which they 
unite to produce it. 
By Analy sis, from two greek words, ava and \vo-tg, (a dissolution 
of, or bringing any substance or thing back to its first principles,) 
chemists express those processes which separate and repeal the parts 
or components of bodies; and by Synthesis, from avv and a 
placing or bringing close together, they designate the re-uniting of 
the parts or constituents separated by analysis, so as to re-produce 
or form afresh the original substance that had been operated upon. 
I shall not multiply chemical authorities, but confine my quota¬ 
tions chiefly to the elements of Lavoisier, that great father of modern 
chemistry; who, though doubtless in error upon some points, may 
safely be ranked with Newton, Boyle, or Linnaeus. What they 
were in philosophy and botany, Lavoisier was in chemistry , for he 
laid the foundation of all the new and brilliant discoveries which 
have added lustre to the present century. 
The first analytic experiment that led to a decisive result is des¬ 
cribed in the 137th page of the first volume of the edition of 1802. 
It may thus be abbreviated; for I cannot pretend to refer to the de¬ 
tail of the plates and machinery, figured and described. The reader 
is earnestly requested to obtain a view of the work itself. 
A glass tube was fixed across a furnace for holding ignited char¬ 
coal ; a slight inclination was given to the tube; and to the superior 
extremity of the tube, was fixed by lute, a glass retort, containing a 
determinate quantity of distilled water. Into the tube, twenty-eight 
grains of charcoal, broken into smallish pieces, and which had pre¬ 
viously been exposed for a long time to a red heat in a close vessel, 
were introduced. To the inferior extremity, a worm (or spiral pipe 
of a still,) was firmly fastened and luted. This worm was adapted 
to a doubly tubulated bottle ; to one tubulure or orifice of which, 
another bent tube was fixed in such a manner as to convey any aeri¬ 
form fluids or gases that might be disengaged into a proper apparatus 
for determining their quantity and nature. 
