REMARKS ON THE INSTITUTES OF Experimental Chemifiry, Ee. PORTO (Price Six-pence.)REMARKS ox ah he Mr. ROBERT Dossiz’s my /034.24 INSTITUTES rhe OF | Experimental Chemiftry, LETTER Addreffed to the Authors of the Review, ec, LONDON: Parinrep for S. Hooper, the Corner of the New- Church, in the Strand. = * oe M.DCQ.LX.LETTER, & GENTLEMEN, eS J HAVE obferved, with regret, that ) you have not exercifed thé fame eri critical difcernmient on t8ks of — chemiftry and the chemical arte, as ont thofé of lefe interefting fabjects. The cenfurea, paffed in your Reviews, upon chemical per- formances, ate fometimés: juft : the cont. mendations afe generaliy otherwife, The Elaboratory, the Handmaid, and the Inflitutes of Experimental Chemiftry, are examples of your being impofed on by. the {pecious preiences of authcrs, and applauding without examination, The few foilowing Remarks cn the Tefitutes, wherein. 1 have confined myfelf to thofe points. which the author informs us in the preface he has pare ticularly aimed at, will probably fet this new juminary in a different point of view from that in which you have exhibited him, B Thef2J. te “The autlior has labour'd at *- A iyi i of chemical philofophy, founded, like the mechanical, on general principles.” What he calls general principles are deduced only from particular facts, and by being made general, they are made falfe. Thus, as the metallic falt vitriol parts with its acid in the fire,it is affirmed that all metallic falts will do the fame; ° whereas, of thofe made with the matine acid, there is not a fingle one that will. In the table of {pecific attractions (one of the fundamental do&trines, of his fyftem) we are taught, * that all acids have a greater attraction to’ mercury than to filver,-which, though true in regard to the marine acid, is falfe in regard to thenitrous ; that they have a greater attraction to mercury than to tin or antimony, which is true in regard to the nitrous, and faife in regard to the marine ; greater to zinc than to iron, which is true in régard to the nitrous and marine, and falfe in regard to the vitriolic ; greater to mercury than to lead, which feems to be true in regard to the vitriolic, but is falfe in regard to the 2 Preface, Page xi. » Vol. i, Page 367. © Vol. i. Page 274. : eats nitrous£3] nitrous and marine ;, greater to fixt aikalies than tolime or niet, and greater to phlo= gilton than to any ‘other of the bodies enumes rated, both which ae true or falle according to the circumftances of application. Even the deflagration of nitre with inflammable fubRanees, than which nothing” feems to bid fairer for a general principle, is, inour author's fenfe, by no means iuch : For if the nitre be melted, and a certain proportion of tome inflammable matters, as antimony freed from a part of its fulphur, be immerfed in it, no deflagration will enfue. Our author, difre- gatding fuch particular circumMances, and depending on the univerfality of the principle, afferts faifly, that nitre cannot be melted in veffels made of the deflagrable metals, and that the empyrical fever powder is the fame with diaphoretic antimony ; * the contrary of which is obvious from common experience, the fever powder proving generally purgatiye or emetic, which diaphotetic antimcny is never obferved to do. Nothirg can be more dangerous in chemiftry than this (pirit.of generalizing, 4 Vol. i. Page 241, Bz Ths[4] The author prefumes that he has gone.much’ farther in the invefligation of the general principles, on which nature conducts her operas tions in -the minuter parts of the fyftem,than any _ writings already publifhed lead. He feoms here to have an eye to the theories, or sether reveries, about animals and vegetablee;_ as that of putrid ferments in the blood; of vital ferments transfufed from birds to the egg, and there Jying inveloped in particular veffels ; and the project of explaining the phenomena of the animal and vegetable ceconomy,from the water, falt, phlogifton and earth, into which the parte of animals and vegetables are refolved by putrefa@ion and by fire. The author himfelf admits, that by this witimate refolution or deftrudtion, nearly all the different parts of all animals and vegetables are reduced into the fame principles : How then can we deduce, from thofe principles, even their obvious grofe dif- ferences from one another? much: lefs their Gifferent a@tions in the body of the liying fubie@. The fame heat which liquifies. the glutinous matter cf the animal folids, apague lates that of the fluids ; and what water, . falt,[s] falt, earth, oil or phlogifton, can be difcovered in one more than-in the other? The author — indeed. acknowledges, that nature;in many inflances, deviates from the - laws he has eftablithed ; or in-other words, that he has - himfelf deviated from. the lawe eftablifhed by nature. How can he pretend to have difcovered the principles on which-nature conduéts her operations, when many of thofe operations are. directly repugnant - to - the principles he has advanced ! He prefumes alfo, that he has made feveral material difcoveries, relating to partiv ~ cular fubjeéts, What thefe difcoveries are, I cannot find, unlefs they be tome fach as the following : *That ftones are compofed of earth and oil, in proof of . which it. is aftiumed, that flinte, diftilledin a retort, give over an atua] oil : This however is falfe, unlefs we fuppofe, with the author, that the bitumen, which yields the Briti/S oil, is flint: That neutral {alts may be prepared by coms bining gypfum with acids *; whereas it is an 2 Page 246, Vd. i, > Page 36r, Voli. - efigntial’[6] effential character of gypfamh not to be combi- nable with any acid: “That the / de jeignette isthe fame with foluble tartar,*and the /piritus Salis marini coagulatus the fame with com- mon falt ; the contrary of which is not only obvious from experiment, but may even be deduced from the author’s own theoty ; for as natton or foda, and the common vegetablé alkalies, are admitted to be very different, does it not follow that falts compounded of the one, cannot be the fame with. thof compeunded of the other ? * That nitre, defla- grated with fulphur, produces an alkaline falt ; whereas it obvioufly prodwees no other than the aitrum vitriolatum: *Thatvitriolated tartar may be ufed to great advantage in making giaf, on account of its fluxing quality ; a quality which it abfolutely wants: That Saxon blues may be dyed on the principle cf oil of vitriol ftrikimg a blue colour with arlenic’;. whereas thefe materials produce no manner of bluenefs, the {ubftance which gives the colour, being no other than the common blue drug indigo : ‘ That fcarlet eDagenens Vale * Page ase, Vola Page ale may. {7] . may. be dyed -with cachineal, by means of putrid urine; an addition’ which woitd | deftroy the foaslet ting :°* That urine cone. tains an’ acctoug armeniscal fale; whereas it contains, in” thé Rate he nienticns it? neither one nor the ether of the ingredients of that falt: That the mattér in urine, which forms the calculus, is chemically ‘of’ the fame nature with tartar ‘of vegetablds ;' thot it ig acknowledged’ not to have any oné of the {pecific characters of tartar, to be neither fubacid, ‘nor ganvertible into ‘sh alkali That the pigment, called Prufian blue, is; in its whole fubftance, n0 other than a blue fixt animal fulpbur ; > whereas it is domone - ftrable that: Pragian blue is- iron, and that no fulphur of any kind is contained in:ani+ mals: That the prapetty of galls, and fome other vegetables, of turning folution of -vitréol ‘black, depends not on their aftringeney, but on a peculiar fpirit'; & notion repugnant 8 the author's own principles, for the tinging matter cannot be made’ to rife in dififation, ® Page 456, Voli, > Page 397, Vol. i, ¢ Page 39, Vol. ii,[8] ; which is the effential character of {pirits ? * That volatile alkaline falts -arife from acrid plants; with the heat of boiling water + whereas nothing is found to arife with this heat but the water and effential oi! of - the plant : That the cauftic acrimony of effential oils is univerfally in proportion to the ftrengtht of their fmell;_ whereas the Mrongeft {melling oil I know of (that of anifeeds) has the leaft acrithony : That {fpirit of wine diffolves myrth‘,and does not diffolve amber’; whereas it really diffolves. one as much as the other, extracting only a part from both; That this Spirit diffolves no falts except the fal déureticus’s whereas it is well known te diffolve many. others, as the ammoniacal nitre, and moft of the metallic falts made with thé marine acid: That gold is made pale by fufion with nitre’; the. very fubftance principally made. ufe of for heightening its colour : That calx -of bifmuth is not yitrefcible®; whereas there is no calx, except, perhaps, that of lead, which vitrefies fo eafily: That- the convertion of icon irto fteel depends * on the expulfion of agci3, 84, 28, 64. 4i6i. eg6. 1248, i377. mineralfol mo mineral falphar 5 the contrary. of which fs evident.from the're-conyerfion of -ft¢el inta iron, and other experiment. ©’ What the author means by. his difcoveries muft, I chink, be the foregaing, orothers. of the fanie kind, of which there isa. very. great nuriibér-5 for I cannot recollect one inftance; of shia differing from what has bee already pubs kithed by others, either in theory or in miattet. of fact, without being plainly miftaken, - He hae givien full infiruftions for the fauris cation of the apparatus, there not having been, before, any atternpt towards accominedating tht inflruments of chemifiry folely to eXperimental purpofes. The attempts for this purpafe.of Glauber, Vigani, Becher, and Dottor Shaw, are well known. How far our anthor’s apparatns conyes fhort of fome of theirs, and how. much he has borrowed from alates writer, Cramer, will be obvious upon’ conte ‘parifon, : Fe hes fubjoined ample direttions for the- execution of the operations, Many cf thee mn _ ¢ ~ dirett-[i190 J direétions evince, that the author has no’ practical knowledge of them; for who, that is inthe leaft converfant in chemical experiments, could think, for inftance, of taking Windfor loam and Sturbridge clay as equivalent to one another, whether for: lates, furnaces, or veffel:? or of coating retorts fora fand heat! Not to mention methods of operation mere inconvenient than thofe in common ufe, though fometimes propofed as improvements, there are fome proceffes directed in a manner abfolutely impraticable. Thus the roafting of metallic ores, for the -diffipation of their fulphur, is ordered to be performed in veficls well clofed*; and in the {melting of ores, in mixture with the fuel®, the ore is directed ta be thrown in at the {mall hole or flit, towards the bottom of the furnace, through which the nozzle of the bellows-is inferted; apart where it icim~ poffible to be thrown in. This error arifes from mifunderftanding Cramer’saccount Our author ha: given direCtions for the fabrication of a fmelting furnace, but if he had ever feen * Page 294, Vol. ij, > Page 308, Voleii, . one,fet one, ‘I ‘think he could’ “ni ae “hate - fallen into fuch: a mifake: wh The Sibjtts are. cath Salts, ~ animals vegetables, and metallic bodies. The author gives experiments and proceffes on the particular kinds of bodies, but bas prefixed a concife view, of the philofophical biflory of each article, and fubjoined obfervations explanatory. Awork conducted on this plan, how well foever executed, would not be a fyftem of chemical philofophy; for, furely, it is not the bufinefs of chemical philofophy to mould common facts into the form of procefés: The point ought rather to be, to' deliver the fimple truths, divefted of that infignificant parade. If. the fyftem is compleated on this plan, it mult extend to feveral {cores of vclumes, , The author informs us that nothing can be more crude and unjettled than the common dilribution of bodies, that charaéteriflic quali« ‘ties are abfolutely wanting, and that be tbinks himfelf particularly bappy in having been able to difeower and mark out, by char and evident C2 criterions,[ raj. CPiterions,. the diflinctions of genus aind pectes.. in bodies, from their. real interiour niature. How happy he bas been in this re(peét, will appear from afew examples. His criterions . of -earths are, to be incapable.of analyzation, infiluble in. water, infufible without vitréfis cation, incombuftible, fixt, pulverine .on friable, _ According to thefe characters, powe . dered platina is an earth, and chalk and alb the calcareous earths are not earth. He divides: éarths into crganical, metallic and. lapidaceous, By organic eaith is meant that of animals and vegetables ; and though this earth is affirmed to be the. fame in both kiogdoms, it is very certain. that-the .vege+ table earth differs effentially from the animal, and eve one animal earth from another. The author admits that fome animal earths burn into lime, and that cthers do not; how then can they be fuppofed to be in. their real and inteicur nature the fame? The fpecific charadters of this organic earth, according to him, are, that it is refractory in refpect to vitrefication, which is true only of the animal earth ; and that i refujes to combineC13]. combine with acids*, which Is ttde newer. OF - the animal nor vegetable, ~ By marallié earths are meant. the comikyen “ealces of metals, ‘which, being all ctipable of' farther decomipofition; ‘are, according to’ the defi- nition, :not' eatths. * Nog fb it'erue’ that they refule to combine with titineral acids’, for 1 do- not “know! of aly cine calie which the marine acid' will not diffolve. + Lapidateous eattht, of thofe ‘wHich: form ‘tones, are: fubdivided into vitrefcent per fc, calcareous, and apyrous, ‘Among the ‘calcareous, -or: fuch as bith into lime, are reckoned thofe which buin not into lime, but into.plafter of Paris‘; ahd among the apyrous, or thofe which ‘aré- not ‘convertible into lime, ‘is reckoned chalk’, ‘the very fabftance from which lime is generally prepared. As to earths vitrefcible per fe, there is not a fimple oné known that is fo, The author indecd gives a procefs for vitrefying the earth of flint’, but, like many othe:s in this work, it is impraGticablei_The criteria of falts are’, to be folublein water and cry ftallizable, * Vol. i. Page 231. > 232. 234. 236, ©247- f25qe - According[14] Acscotding to thefe criteria,” quicklime is.a falt,-and vegetable fixt alkaline falte are not. falts. In regard to lime, the author. is aware that it anfwers his. definition of falts, and therefore exprefly admits that the pellicles which feparate from lime water are a true falt*; but this is again repugnant to the criteria; the pellicle, in their prefent ftate,-not being in the leaft diffoluble. Shall we call the earth, which inctuftates tea-kettles, a falt,. becau‘e it was once diffolved in the water? Or the human calculus a falt, becaufe it was once diffolved in the urine ? The author eflablithes a new clafs of vegetable fubftances, under the name of JSitlphurecus, whofe diflinguithing character is, that they flame in a certain degree of heat’: But how does this diftinguith them fiom gums, of which it is allo faid, that in a certain degree of heat they flame and glow®. One of thefe fulphurs is flowers of benzoine; but flowers of ben- zoine are * admitted to be foluble in water * Vol. i, Page 2go, > Vol, ii, Page 21. S19. 445. andfis] * and cryftallizable, which are the’ very” cha- ractets by which! we are’ tiught*to diftine guith falte.. -Effential ile’ are faid to’ be a fpecies of ethereal oils*)but-they ate faid alfo to be refoluble into’ ethereal: oils and’ refin’,; and how can they be a'fpecies of . that which is only one of their ingredi- ents? The fpecific character of ethereal oils: is, that they rife with lefs heat than: that of boiling water’; and yet the- oily matter in burnt fagar* and burnt. gum® is called ethereal, though it will not rife: with double that heat. Thefe are fufficient exe amples of our author’s fagacity in claffing bodies, and fixing clear criteria. : He admits that many. of his experiments are taken from other writers. ‘They are in general, however, taken very inaccurately almoft every thing feeming to receive .a wrong caft’ in paffing through ‘his ‘hands, Even Dr. Lewis's experiments on platina, where he had all the accuracy and precifion he could, with for, and of which by. the bye he has evidently read only a part, are @ Vol, ii, Page 41. 29, 24. San. 658, by[76] by ‘our author -in ¢many places miftepre- fented and. mifaken... . He -defcribes, . for example, .a- proee&s for feparating plating from: gold; by. diffolving the compound in aqua regia, precipitating with fixt.alkali, and wathing the precipitate; The Doétar's experiment, from -which this procefs is - deduced. by.our euthor, proyes that the platina cannot be feparated by this means, He has generally done more than is exe preficd in his motto, Be nova fert animus, &e, not only moulding the Jody. into new forms, but evaporating the /pirit. I thall now, Gentlemen, leave. the pub- lic to judge, what foundation there is for your encomiums of the Inflitutes ; and show far the author’s very unjuft charaGter of Becher, Stabl, Boerbaave, and other ce# Aebrated :chemifte, is juft when applied to shim(elf, that tbe whole fjhem is vain, empty, shimerical, and not to be even foecioufly deduced from any fatisfattory experiments : That’ moft of. his cpinions have no foundation but in bis | wen Faris or in that of. others from-whom bety. ‘be bak erbdulonify copled the wap abfurd faifitles : That be bas fir. invented an bypotbefs, and then invented fatts to verify it: That. in ‘regard to many faths, be is tetorioufy. mifuken, perhaps from that wolatility «of thought, which prevents bis diftinguifbing betwixt the vigarous » fallies of iimaginativn anil dentate afm . ings, * * os . The contemptuous vanity of this wrie ter breaks forth uy | in his otter per~ formances ; and his other perforinance’, (reckoning the Elaboratory and Handmaid to be fach) are equally contemptible with the prefent. I fhould have fent you fome animadverfions upon them as they made ‘their appearance, if I had-not thought yourfelves to be more equal to the tafk. For though much of them is tco abfurd for ferious criticifm, it is turely of impor- tance to point. ‘out foe of the material errors, to prevent. the inexperienced reader" from. Being mifled ‘by them inte unfuccefs. ful and expenfive fchemés ; -or ‘from being difgufled with chémittry inet, from find- 2Vol.i, Pageyezb, 264, 279, 499, Ge Be. “D ing[ 18 7 ” ‘ing fo thany things, delivered with the air - of truth, prove on trial to be falfe, Perhaps the foregoing obfervations onthe - Infitutes may put the public fofficiently upon their guard ; and remind the writers: of the critical Reviews, that if they fail in their duty and profeffed impartiality, they will not efcape being properly expofed. nemmmnm Nothing extenuate, Nor fet down aught in malice —me “I am, Gentlemen, Your conflant Reader, A. a