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JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
THE CHEMISTRY OF CARBON. 
ABSTRACT OF PAPER BY DR. R. OXLAND, F.C.S. 
(Read February 5th, 1880.) 
Until comparatively a recent period in the history of chemistry it 
was "believed impossible to produce certain substances artificially, 
hence the terms organic and inorganic chemistry were introduced 
as a classification of bodies that could be produced artificially and 
of others which could only be developed by the intervention of 
vital agency. As now it appears that many, if not all, of these 
substances can be produced artificially from their primary elements, 
and as in all cases carbon is an essential constituent of them, the 
term chemistry of carbon has been substituted for that of organic 
chemistry. 
Carbon is believed to be an elementary substance ; its existence 
as an element was first determined by Lavoisier. Our knowledge 
of matter is so limited that we cannot venture to estimate the 
relative proportions of the elementary substances existing in the 
earth. Carbon appears to be one of the most abundant, but at the 
same time one of the most remarkable, being possessed of the most 
wonderfully diverse and seemingly contradictory properties. It is 
the most Protean-like of all the elements. It is the blackest, it is 
the most white, the most destructive and the most productive, the 
hardest and the softest, the best abrader of surfaces, and the best 
lubricator. It is the most permanent, the most changeable and 
changing body in existence. 
The mode of production of carbon by the destructive distillation 
of wood was described, and the origin of the carbon traced to the 
atmosphere from which, by the vitality of the tree, it had been 
extracted, at the same time that the carbon native to the soil in 
which the tree grew was increased in quantity by the same agency. 
The atmosphere, therefore, proves to be the great storehouse of 
carbon in an invisible form. These facts lead to the consideration 
of the history of carbon. It is so plainly written in the archives 
