C. G. Gmelin is professor of chemistry at Tubingen; he has devoted the whole of his attention to chemical analysis, and has published a great number of excellent ones, particularly in Schweigger's Journal. His analysis of helvine, and of the tourmalin, may be specified as particularly valuable. In this last mineral, he demonstrated the presence of boracic acid. Leopold Gmelin, professor of chemistry at Heidelberg, has also distinguished himself as an analytical chemist. His System of Chemistry, which is at present publishing, promises to be the best and most perfect which Germany has produced.
Henry Rose, of Berlin, is the son of that M. Rose who was educated by Klaproth, and afterwards became the intimate friend and fellow-labourer of that illustrious chemist. He has devoted himself to analytical chemistry with indefatigable zeal, and has favoured us with a prodigious number of new and admirably-conducted analyses. His analyses of pyroxenes, of the ores of titanium, of gray copper ore, of silver glance, of red silver ore, miargyrite, polybasite, &c., may be mentioned as examples. In 1829 he published a volume on analytical chemistry, which is by far the most complete and valuable work of the kind that has hitherto appeared; and ought to be carefully studied by all those who wish to make themselves masters of the difficult, but necessary art of analyzing compound bodies.[6]
Wöhler is professor of chemistry in the Polytechnic School of Berlin; he does not appear to have turned his attention to analytical chemistry, but rather towards extending our knowledge of the compounds which the different simple bodies are capable of forming with each other. His discovery of cyanic acid may be mentioned as a specimen. He is active and young; much, therefore, may be expected from him.
Augustus Arfvedson has distinguished himself by the discovery of the new fixed alkali, lithia, in petalite and spodumene. It has been lately ascertained at Moscow, by M. R. Hermann, and the experiments have been repeated and confirmed by Berzelius, that lithia is a much lighter substance than it was found to be by Arfvedson, its atomic weight being only 1·75. We have from Arfvedson an important set of experiments on uranium and its oxides, and on the action of hydrogen on the metallic sulphurets. He has likewise analyzed a considerable number of minerals with great care; but of late years he seems to have lost his activity. His analysis of chrysoberyl does not possess the accuracy of the rest: by some inadvertence, he has taken a compound of glucina and alumina for silica.
I ought to have included Walmstedt and Trollé-Wachmeister among the Swedish chemists who have contributed important papers towards the progress of analytical chemistry, the memoir of the former on chrysolite, and of the latter on the garnets, being peculiarly valuable. But it would extend this work to an almost interminable length, if I were to particularize every meritorious experimenter. This must plead my excuse for having omitted the names of Bucholz, Gehlen, Fuchs, Dumesnil, Dobereiner, Kupfer, and various other meritorious chemists who have contributed so much to the perfecting of the chemical analysis of the mineral kingdom. But it would be unpardonable to leave out the name of M. Mitcherlich, professor of chemistry in Berlin, and successor of Klaproth, who was also a pupil of Berzelius. He has opened a new branch of chemistry to our consideration. His papers on isomorphous bodies, on the crystalline forms of various sets of salts, on the artificial formation of various minerals, do him immortal honour, and will hand him down to posterity as a fit successor of his illustrious predecessors in the chemical chair of Berlin—a city in which an uninterrupted series of first-rate chemists have followed each other for more than a century; and where, thanks to the fostering care of the Prussian government, the number was never greater than at the present moment.
The most eminent analytical chemists at present in France are, Laugier, a nephew and successor of Fourcroy, as professor of chemistry in the Jardin du Roi, and Berthier, who has long had the superintendence of the laboratory of the School of Mines. Laugier has not published many analyses to the world, but those with which he has favoured us appear to have been made with great care, and are in general very accurate. Berthier is a much more active man; and has not merely given us many analyses, but has made various important improvements in the analytical processes. His mode of separating arsenic acid, and determining its weight, is now generally followed; and I can state from experience that his method of fusing minerals with oxide of lead, when the object is to detect an alkali, is both accurate and easy. Berthier is young, and active, and zealous; we may therefore expect a great deal from him hereafter.
The chemists in great Britain have never hitherto distinguished themselves much in analytical chemistry. This I conceive is owing to the mode of education which has been hitherto unhappily followed. Till within these very few years, practical chemistry has been nowhere taught. The consequence has been, that every chemist must discover processes for himself; and a long time elapses before he acquires the requisite dexterity and skill. About the beginning of the present century, Dr. Kennedy, of Edinburgh, was an enthusiastic and dexterous analyst; but unfortunately he was lost to the science by a premature death, after giving a very few, but these masterly, analyses to the public. About the same time, Charles Hatchett, Esq., was an active chemist, and published not a few very excellent analyses; but unfortunately this most amiable and accomplished man has been lost to science for more than a quarter of a century; the baneful effects of wealth, and the cares of a lucrative and extensive business, having completely weaned him from scientific pursuits. Mr. Gregor, of Cornwall, was an accurate man, and attended only to analytical chemistry: his analyses were not numerous, but they were in general excellent. Unfortunately the science was deprived of his services by a premature death. The same observation applies equally to Mr. Edward Howard, whose analyses of meteoric stones form an era in this branch of chemistry. He was not only a skilful chemist, but was possessed of a persevering industry which peculiarly fitted him for making a figure as a practical chemist. Of modern British analytical chemists, undoubtedly the first is Mr. Richard Philips; to whom we are indebted for not a few analyses, conducted with great chemical skill, and performed with great accuracy. Unfortunately, of late years he has done little, having been withdrawn from science by the necessity of providing for a large family, which can hardly be done, in this country, except by turning one's attention to trade or manufactures. The same remark applies to Dr. Henry, who has contributed so much to our knowledge of gaseous bodies, and whose analytical skill, had it been wholly devoted to scientific investigations, would have raised his reputation, as a discoverer, much higher than it has attained; although the celebrity of Dr. Henry, even under the disadvantages of being a manufacturing chemist, is deservedly very high. Of the young chemists who have but recently started in the path of analytical investigation, we expect the most from Dr. Turner, of the London University. His analyses of the ores of manganese are admirable specimens of skill and accuracy, and have completely elucidated a branch of mineralogy which, before his experiments, and the descriptions of Haidinger appeared, was buried in impenetrable darkness.
No man that Great Britain has produced was better fitted to have figured as an analytical chemist, both by his uncommon chemical skill, and the powers of his mind, which were of the highest order, than Mr. Smithson Tennant, had he not been in some measure prevented by a delicate frame of body, which produced in him a state of indolence somewhat similar to that of Dr. Black. His discovery of osmium and iridium, and his analysis of emery and magnesian limestone, may be mentioned as proofs of what he could have accomplished had his health allowed him a greater degree of exertion. His experiments on the diamond first demonstrated that it was composed of pure carbon; while his discovery of phosphuret of lime has furnished lecturers on chemistry with one of the most brilliant and beautiful of those exhibitions which they are in the habit of making to attract the attention of their students.
Smithson Tennant was the only child of the Rev. Calvert Tennant, youngest son of a respectable family in Wensleydale, near Richmond, in Yorkshire, and vicar of Selby in that county. He was born on the 30th of November, 1761: he had the misfortune to lose his father when he was only nine years of age; and before he attained the age of manhood he was deprived likewise of his mother, by a very unfortunate accident: she was thrown from her horse while riding with her son, and killed on the spot. His education, after his father's death, was irregular, and apparently neglected; he was sent successively to different schools in Yorkshire, at Scorton, Tadcaster, and Beverley. He gave many proofs while young of a particular turn for chemistry and natural philosophy, both by reading all books of that description which fell in his way, and by making various little experiments which the perusal of these books suggested. His first experiment was made at nine years of age, when he prepared a quantity of gunpowder for fireworks, according to directions contained in some scientific book to which he had access.
In the choice of a profession, his attention was naturally directed towards medicine, as being more nearly allied to his philosophical pursuits. He went accordingly to Edinburgh, about the year 1781, where he laid the foundation of his chemical knowledge under Dr. Black. In 1782 he was entered a member of Christ's College, Cambridge, where he began, from that time, to reside. He was first entered as a pensioner; but disliking the ordinary discipline and routine of an academical life, he obtained an exemption from those restraints, by becoming a fellow commoner. During his residence at Cambridge his chief attention was bestowed on chemistry and botany; though he made himself also acquainted with the elementary parts of mathematics, and had mastered the most important parts of Newton's Principia.