The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1900-07-11
THE DYING CENTURY
PASSED In REVIEW
GREAT ACHIEVEMENTS MADE
IN CHEMISTRY.
Application of the Science to the
Commanest Things of Everyday
Life as Well as to the Art. and De-
velopment of Industries.
From the Chicago Timcs.TIcrald.

From the Chicago Times Herald.
Virtually chemistry began with the
nineteenth century, and at this begin
ming of the twentieth century it is one
Of the most promising fields for the
development of the sciences. The chem
list has heComc necessary to almost
every line of industrialism. He is in
the steel rolling mill, the Touring mill,
the bakery, the dye factory, the brew
cry, and is consulted by Il hundred di-
verging callings and professions. With
out his findings the medical profession
would he handicapped and the hospital
a misnomer. Justice as represented in
the courts, would be doubly blin1fOlded
were it not for him. Even the home
kitchen is Influenced by his analyses
and determinations.
Yet for hundreds of years before the
world was ripe for chemistry the al
chemist had been delving for gold in
the transmutatiOn of baser metals
How far and swiftly chemistry has
come to the present may be indicated
in the statement that oxygen was an
unknown element until near the end
of the eighteenth century. Joseph
one of the most important accomplish
ments in the history of science. His
proof was in burning a candle in a
glass until the flame died out. sprig
of growing mint then was introduced
into the vessel where, after few
days, the candle again burned bril-
liantly. AS friend of Benjamin
Franklln-folloWinR him to America
after he had aroused political onposi-
tion at home and lost home, library
and apparatus by a riotous 0utburst-
Priestley may be claimed i'm a great
measure for the United States. 1t was
here that he discovered oxygen gas in
IVA, a circumstance more than any
other that began to lead chemistry
away from period of error into which
it had grown.
In 1892 Antoine LavOisier presented
the great truths of the indestructibil-
ity of matter With it he announced
his great oxygenzing principle and for
the first time offered proof Of the COM
position of water. Henry Cavcndish,
PriestleY and others had been before
him in pathfinding, but he came to
clinch that which they left as a loose,
irrelevant fact. When the French gull
lotine had ended life for Lavoisier, the
great German Liebig said of him:
He discovered no new bOdv no new
property. no new natural phenomenon
previously unknown, but all the facts
established by him were the necessary
consequences Of the labors of others
who preceded him. His merit, his i'm
mortal glory, consisted in this--that he
infused into the body of science a new
spirit"
The year 1900, as it dawned upon
the world, found chemistry to be a
hazardous profession No one knew
when chemical laboratory might be
scattered to fragments by the explo-
sion of substances mixed in a mortar.
Tho chemist himself did not know
when a subtle poison might not over
come him as he stood experimenting
Nitric acid, as acids go, is a harmless
fluid; glyccrir is almost a toilet fluid
yet 1t was the nineteenth century
chemist who discovered that a mix
ture Of these two becomes an explo-
s!ve unsafe for any man to handle
so unsafe that it's least harmful sub
stitute is dynamite
Nothing in the development and pro-
speaks more ior the daring of the
scientist that the production Of high
explosives and the Installations of
deadly poisons. Prussic acid and
nitro -glycerin alone are suggestive of
something more than martyrdCm in
research
Humphrey Davy made his mark or
chemistry in the first years of the
century. His greatest accomplish
ment, he insisted, was in the discov-
cry of Michael FaradaS. The names
of both tkCse men are written large
on the scroll Of the worlds science.
ORGANIC CHEMISTRY EVOLVED.
John Dalton, n color blind Quaker,
marked an era in chemistry when in
1902 ne announced his atomic theory
and the law of multiple proportions in
elcmenta! substances. His most praC-
tical work was his table of atomic
weights of The elements, given to the
world in 1903, These tables We're more
or less inaccurate, but they became
the bases FOR experiment and later cor
rrctionS and proofs.
KirchOff and Bunsen, with the per-
footed spectrosCOpe, sCon afterward
gay" to chemistry one Of its greatest
allies, BY means Of it tho chemist has
seen principles rather than applica-
tions, and new liEht has beer shed
upon the chemistry of the universe.
Through all Of this progress even
the grand masters of the science had
held 20 Inorganic chemistry only. It
was not only a belief, but an advanced
theory, that organic bodies could not
be prepared artihcially. Berzelius was
the first to dispute this, in 1914 but
it was not until 1928 that Wohler
proved the theory of organic chemis-
try, Justus Liebig added to this
knowledge, and today his process IL
still in usr for determining carbon and
hydrogen in organic bodies
The discovery Of organic chemistry
was the greatest accomplishment Of
the century, 1t was the impetus
which has made chemistry so vital to
modcrn civilization. Today the chem
ic7l laboratory may Iroduc" many
things once thought TO be monopoly
Of natures stOrohousos. Foods and
fuels are looked upon as representing
SO much Of potential energy. out of
which either tn" man or the machine
may ha expected TO accomplish Just
81 much expenditure of force. Oddly
enough, the man-mechine Is more eco
nomC of his fuel than Is the man
made machine Runscn's Sasburner,
which mixes oxygen ana gas i'm very
nearly perfect proportions, has done
much for machine fuel, but tho COM
bustion of coal to the point Of parfec-
ton Is TO be one Of the problems of
the new century, as 1t has been one Of
IL