New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-07-25
CHEuISTRYS CENTENNIAL.

fHEHISINlO zen IEhhfhL'
Next week the chemists seek amid the noun
tam ranges of Pennsylvania, the secluded VII
lage where Joseph Priestley, driven from his
home in England by the torch of the incen-
diary, found refuge in his declining years.
They meet to celebrate the hundredth ami
versary of his great discovery. 1t may be
safely assumed that no one event has had
greater effect upon chemical science than the
separation of oxygen gas and It's recognition
as a distinct substance. But the value OF this
discovery was little recognized In Its day.
The theory laid down by Aristotle, dyld-
ing all things into the four elements,
fire. water, earth and air, after possessing
the belief of mankind for many centuries, had
been in a measure superseded. The transmit
tation theory of the alchemists that derived
everything from mercury, sulphur, and salt,
and wrapped its revelations III grotesque
imagery that made them more obscure than
Nature herself, was fading away. Chemistry In
the days of Priestley was founded on the doc
trine of phlogiston, in which the discoverer OF
oxygen was himself firm believer. Phlogis-
ton was the sole combustible material, dis
tributcd throughout the universe, and forming
the inhammable part of everything that could
be burned 1t is long leap from the faith III
phlogistOn to the science of to-day; but the
discoveries which rendered the latter possible
cluster about the years of a century ago.
The chemists at Northumberland will have
much to recite if they attempt to enumerate
all the steps by which their science has adj
vanced within IL hundred years. But while
they are reviewing the great events of the
last century, we trust they will not allow the
importance Of the old to obscure the value of
the new. 1t is natural to look on an era that
was Illuminated by the genius of Black, Cayen-
dish, Priestley, Scheele and Lavolsler, when
the four great gases were ACKNOWLEDGMENT,
hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbonic acld-as lar
outshning the present hour. Then again
when we come to the discoveries OF the
metallic bases of the earths-when Sir Hum
phrey Davy was 50 busy with the poles of his
battery that he had no time to change his
clothes, and the accumulation of shirt after
shirt gave portliness to his person, to be
succeeded on their removal by a sudden lean
ness that alarmed his friends, while he was
supervising the birth of potassium and sodium
we are apt to fancy that those were days
of discovery that can never be equaled. Again,
it is hard to fancy any more important dis
coyery than that by which Dalton lifted chem
istry into the rank of exact sciences and took
from it its chief reproach, by placing 1T upon
the mathematical basis of the atomic theory.
But the light of yesterday is no brighter in
reality than that of to-day. 1t is only re-
Gently we have been cxtricated from a grave
error. 1t is not so very long ago when it
was almost an article of faith to believe that
no pounIpI
by the chemist. There was really sort of
religious notion about it. The sacred princi-
ME of life-the vital fOrce-worked miracles
that could never be effected by the chemists
strongest solvents, or his hottest fires. Well,
that notion has been dispelled, and the Ia
boratory rivals nature in thousand products,
Identical with those evolved by the slower
processes of animal and vegetable existence.
There are too the vast series Of discoveries in
the coa-tar colOrs, supplanting the indigo oil
the East and the madden of the Lowlands,
and Transforming noisome and worthless
refuse into varied dyes more brilliant than the
Tyrian purple. Do not these discoveries con-
stitute an era 7 Is there nothing to be said
about the misunderstanding, nitrous oxide,
charlottesville greatest boon to suffering
humanity since the stars shone over Bethlehem
And now, within decade, by the labors of the
spectroscopists we have lifted our laboratories
to the skies; we analyze the flames of our
SUN and investigate the sweet influences of
the Pleiades. Surely the celebration at North
cumberland will fail of its highest value, if a
devotion to retrospect in chemistry over
shadows the Importance and interest of the
discoveries of to-day.