LITTELL'S LIVING AGE. From the British Quarterly Review. (1.) The Bakerian Lecture for 1828. We have been informed that, soon after Wollaston's death, all the documents and materials necessary for his biography were placed in the hands of a gentleman well qualified for the task of writing it. The expected work, however, has not appeared, and, so far as we are aware, no progress has been made towards its production. We trust that the idea of publishing a life of Wollaston has not been abandoned, and that we shall yet see his personal history placed on permanent record. Meanwhile, we think we shall do our readers a WILLIAM HYDE WOLLASTON, one of the ablest service, by bringing before them such a sketch of and most renowned of English chemists and natu- the philosopher, as the scanty materials at our disral philosophers, was born August 6, 1766, and posal enable us to furnish. Imperfect and fragdied in December, 1828. Seventeen years have mentary as it necessarily is, it will give them some passed away since his death, and yet no biography idea of a very remarkable man. An experienced has appeared, although he has as wide a reputation crystallographer can tell from a few sandlike grains, among men of science as Sir Humphrey Davy, of or a single detached and rounded angle, that the whom lives innumerable have been written. This crystal of which they once were parts was a perhas in part arisen from the comparatively retired fect cube, a many-sided prism, or a symmetrical life which Wollaston led, and the reserve and pyramid. The geologist can infer from a tooth or austerity of his character. He was not, like his claw much concerning the whole animal to which great contemporary, a public lecturer to a highly it belonged. We trust that our readers will in like popular institution, and thereby an object of inter- manner be able to piece our biographical fragments est, not only to men of science, but likewise to together into "one entire and perfect chrysolite;" students of literature, and even to people of fash- and that they will find the paleontologist's guiding ion. His life was spent in his laboratory, from mottoes, "Ex ungue Leonem," "Ex pede Herwhich even his intimate friends were excluded; and culem," lead them to the conclusion that they are the results of his labors were made known only by dealing with one of the megatheria among men of essays, published for the most part in the Transac-science. tions of the Royal Society of London. His dis- William Hyde Wollaston belonged to a Staffordcoveries, however, were so many, and of so impor-shire family, distinguished for several generations tant a kind, and made his name so wide known, by their successful devotion to literature and that we cannot but wonder that no bi raphy of science. His great-grandfather, the Rev. William him has yet appeared. Two of his plications, Wollaston, was author of a work famous in its the one containing the description of reflecting day, entitled, "The Religion of Nature Delineatgoniometer, the other explaining process by ed." His father, the Rev. Francis Wollaston, of which platina ray be rendered m cable, would Chiselhurst, in Kent, from his own observations, alone have enti ed Wollaston to a ace in the roll made an extensive catalogue of the northern cirof natural ph sophers worthy of lengthened re-cumpolar stars, which, with an account of the inmembrance. rad he been a German, some patient, struments employed, and tables for the reductions, painstaking fellow-countryman would long ago was published under the title of "Fasciculus Ashave put on record all that could be learned con- tronomicus," in 1800. cerning his personal history. Had he been a Frenchman, an eloquent Dumas or Arago would have read his eloge to the assembled men of science of the French capital, in language acceptable to the most learned, and intelligible to the most unscientific of men. His fate as an Englishman is, to have his memory preserved (otherwise than by his own works) only by one or two meagre and unauthenticated sketches, which scarcely tell more than that he was born, lived some sixty years, published certain papers, and died. The subject of our memoir vas the se ond son of the astronomer, and of Altea Hyde, of Charter-house square, London. I.e was one of seventeen children, and was born at East Dereham, a village some sixteen miles from Norwich. on the 6th of August, 1766. After the usual preparatory education, he went to Cambridge, and entered at Caius College, where he made great progress. In several of the sketches published of him, he is said to have been senior wrangler of his year; but this is a mistake, arising out of the fact, that a With the exception of some faint and imperfect person of the same surname, Mr. Francis Wollasglimpses of an austere taciturn solitary, perfecting ton, of Sidney Sussex College, gained the first wonderful discoveries in a laboratory hermetically sealed against all intruders, we learn almost nothing of the individuality of the worker. A few anec dotes, incidentally preserved in the lives of some of his contemporaries, contain nearly all that has seen published concerning his personal history. CXXV. place in 1783. Dr. Wollaston did not graduate in arts, but took the degree of M.B. in 1787, and that of M.D. in 1793. He became a fellow of Caius College soon after taking his degree, and continued one till his death. At Cambridge he resided till 1789, and astronomy appears to have been his favorite study there, although there is evidence to |fied his fixed intention to decline competition, gave show that at this time, as at a later period, he was the whole weight of his influence to Davy, and the very catholic in his scientific tastes. He probably latter was elected. inherited a predilection for the study of the heavenly bodies from his father, and it was increased by his intimacy with the late astronomer royal of Dublin, Dr. Brinkley, now Bishop of Cloyne, and with Mr. Pond, formerly astronomer royal of Greenwich, with whom he formed a friendship at Cambridge which lasted through life. His communications to the Royal Society are thirty-nine in number, and, along with his contributions to other scientific journals, refer to a greater variety of topics than those of any other English chemist, not excepting Cavendish. In addition to essays on strictly chemical subjects, they include papers on important questions in astronomy, optics, mechanics, acoustics, mineralogy, crystallography, physiology, pathology, and botany, besides one on a question connected with the fine arts, and several describing mechanical inventions. We shall endeavor to give the reader some idea of certain of the more important of these papers, discussing them, however, not in their chronological order, but according to a classified list. Five are on questions of physiology and pathology, and do not admit of popular discussion. The most curious of these is a paper on "Semi-decussation of the optic nerves," and single vision with two eyes. Besides its interest as a scientific essay, it is important as having been occasioned by speculations concerning the cause of a remarkable form of blindness from which Wollaston suffered, during which he saw only half of every object, the loss of sight being in both eyes towards the left, and of short duration only." This peculiar state of vision proved in the end to have been symptomatic of a disease of the brain, of which he died. In 1789, he settled at Bury St. Edmunds, in Suffolk, and commenced to practise as a physician, but with so little success, probably on account of the peculiar gravity and reserve of his manner, that he soon left the place and removed to London. He succeeded, however, no better in the metropolis. Soon after reaching it, a vacancy occurred in St. George's Hospital, and Wollaston became candidate for the office of physician there. The place was gained, however, by his principal opponent, Dr. Pemberton," who, it is said, either by superior interest, or, as is commonly supposed, by his more pleasing and polished manners, obtained the situation." It is added in several of the notices of Wollaston," that on hearing of his failure, in a fit of pique, he declared that he would abandon the profession, and never more write a prescription, were it for his own father.” This statement must be received with hesitation. So staid and sedate a person as Wollaston was, is not likely to have given utterance to the hasty and intemperate expressions attributed to him; and so prudent a man would not have bound himself by a rash vow to abandon his profession, unless he had seen the Wollaston published two papers on astronomy, prospect of occupying himself more pleasantly and one "On a Method of Comparing the Light of the profitably in another way. This account, indeed, Sun with that of the Fixed Stars," of which we is in direct contradiction to another; which is so can only give the title; the other is, "On the far authentic, and entitled to greater credibility, Finite Extent of the Atmosphere," and is one of that it is contained in the report of the council of the most interesting physical essays on record. It the Astronomical Society of Great Britain, pre- was published in January, 1822, in the May presented at the anniversary meeting in 1829. In the ceding which, a transit of Venus over the sun's obituary notice of Wollaston given in that report, disk took place. Wollaston was induced in conseit is mentioned, "that he continued to practise in quence to make observations on this rare and interLondon till the end of the year 1800, when an ac-esting phenomenon. None of the larger observacession of fortune determined him to relinquish a tories were provided with suitable instruments for profession he never liked, and devote himself wholly to science." He had no occasion to regret the change even in a pecuniary point of view, the only one in which his abandonment of medicine was likely to have injured him. His process for rendering crude platina malleable, which conferred so great a service on analytical chemistry, is said to have brought him more than thirty thousand pounds, and he is alleged to have made money by several of his minor discoveries a inventions. Eight or nine papers are on optics, but our limits will not allow us to discuss them. watching it; but our philosopher, with that singular ingenuity both in devising and in constructing apparatus which we shall afterwards find to have been one of his great characteristics, succeeded by a few happy contrivances in making a small telescope completely serve the purpose. His special object in watching the passage of Venus, was to ascertain whether or not the sun has an atmosphere like that of the earth. He satisfied himself that it has not, and embodied his results in the paper, the title of which we have given. The remainder of Vollaston's life must be re- It is a very curious attempt to decide a most diffiferred to in terms like to those in which the sacred cult chemical problem by reference to an astronomwriter of the Book of Chronicles finishes his brief ical fact. The chemical question is, do the elements record of each Jewish king: "Now the rest of of compounds consist of indivisible particles, or his acts and his deeds first and last are written in atoms, or do they not? It is a branch of the great the book of the kings of Israel and Judah." What problem which has occupied physics and metaphysthe book of the Jewish kings is to their lives, the ics since the dawn of speculation, in vain attempts archives and records of the Royal Society are to to decide either way, viz., is matter finitely or inour scientific men. Dr. Wollaston became a fellow finitely divisible? Our author undertakes to show, of that society in 1793, and was made second sec- not only that this difficulty may be solved, but that retary in 1806. He was for many years vice-pres- in fact it was solved, though no one was aware of ident, and in 1820, between the death of Sir J. it, as early as the discovery of the telescope, and Banks and the election of Sir H. Davy, he occu-Galileo's first observation of the eclipses of Jupiter's pied the president's chair. There were not a few, moons. indeed, among the influential members of the soci- His mode of reasoning is as follows. If our air. ety, who would have preferred him to Davy as consist of an infinite number of particles, then as permanent chairman; but Wollaston having signi- these are known to be self-repulsive, there can be no limit to the amount of its expansion. It will spread out into space, on every side, and be found surrounding each of the heavenly bodies. If, on the other hand, the atmosphere consist of a finite number of molecules or atoms, it will find a limit at no great distance from the earth. For the force of repulsion between the atoms will rapidly diminish as they recede from each other, till it become insufficient to oppose the counteracting force of gravity. The air will then cease to expand, and present a row of bounding molecules, prevented from falling towards the earth by the repulsion of the particles between it and them, and from receding from the earth by their own weight. The conclusion from this reasoning is, that if astronomy can show that any one of the heavenly bodies has not an atmosphere of the same nature as ours, chemistry will be entitled, and indeed compelled, to infer, first, that our atmosphere, and then that all matter, consists of finitely divisible particles or It is certain, then, that the earth's atmosphere is limited, and according to Wollaston it is equally sure that matter is only finitely divisible. The paper we are discussing excited great attention among men of science; and for a long period, though few implicitly assented to the validity of the argument, no one appeared able to detect any fallacy in its reasoning. It was commented on by Faraday, Graham, Turner, and Daubeny, as an important contribution to chemistry; and referred to by Dumas as the only attempt which had been made in modern times to decide by physics the question of the finite or infinite divisibility of matter. More recently, it has been shown that the fact that the atmosphere is limited will not justify the conclusion which Wollaston deduced from it. It has been suggested by Dumas, following out the views of Poisson, that the low temperature which is known to prevail in the upper regions of the atmosphere, may be such at its boundary as to destroy the elasticity of the air, and even to condense it into a liquid or freeze it into a solid. The outer envelope of our atmosphere is thus supposed to be a shell of frozen air. If this view be just, our atmosphere is limited, not because it consists of atoms, but simply because a great cold prevails in its upper regions. The astronomical problem is easily and speedily solved. The moon is too near us, to permit of observations of the necessary kind being made, as to her possession of an atmosphere similar in constitution to ours; but according to telescopic observation, she is a naked globe. The phenomena presented when Venus or Mercury passes close to the Professor Whewell has shown that Wollaston sun, certify that he has no atmosphere like that of was not entitled to assume that the law which conthe earth; but his high temperature, and its possi- nects the density of the air with the compressing ble effect on an atmosphere, if he have one, some- force is the same at the limit of the atmosphere, as what lessen the value of the fact. Jupiter, how- it is near the surface of the earth. He suggests a ever, and his five moons, admit of observations different law which may prevail, and which would which make it certain that our aërial envelope has terminate the atmosphere without the assumption not reached to that heavenly body.* When his of atoms. satellites suffer eclipse by passing behind him, they Lastly, it has been pointed out, that though all appear to a spectator on the earth, to move across Wollaston's postulates were granted him, they his disk till they reach its edge, when they instanta- would only entitle him to infer that the atmosphere neously disappear. When they reappear, after consists of a finite number of repelling molecules. moving round him, they emerge in a moment from To establish this, is to establish nothing. We are behind his body, and start at once into full view. still on the threshold of the argument. Each moleHad Jupiter an atmosphere like ours, the occulta- cule supplies as good a text whereon to discuss the tion of his satellites would not occur as it is ob-question of divisibility, as the whole atmosphere served to do. Our sun, when he sinks below the out of which it was taken. The point which most horizon, remains visible to us by the light bent up of all demanded proof, namely, that the molecule or refracted to our eyes, through the transparent was an atom, was the very one which Wollaston air, and twilight slowly darkens into night. In like took for granted. manner, long before the rising sun would be seen, if our globe were naked, the air sends up his rays to our eyes, and he becomes visible. If Jupiter had an atmosphere like that of the earth, each of his moons, instead of disappearing at once behind his disk, would exhibit a twilight recession, and slowly wane away. When it returned, it would be seen much sooner, after being lost sight of, than it is at present, and would gradually wax brighter and brighter till it came fully into view. In other words, the atmosphere of Jupiter would send back the light of the satellite to us, after the latter disappeared behind the planet; and would send forward that light before the moon reappeared. Wollaston shows that, in the case last supposed, the fourth satellite would never be eclipsed, but would remain visible when at the very back of the planet. Beautiful, then, and certain as are the astronomical facts brought to light by Wollaston, they supply no decision of the question of the divisibility of matter. That problem still presents the same two-fold aspect of difficulty which it has ever exhibited. If we affirm that matter is infinitely divisible, we assert the apparent contradiction, that a finite whole contains an infinite number of parts. If, pressed by this difficulty, we seek to prove that the parts are as finite as the whole they make up, we fail in our attempt. We can never exhibit the finite factors of our finite whole; and the so-called atom always proves as divisible as the mass out of which it was extracted. Finity and infinity must both be believed in; but here, as in other departments of knowledge, we cannot reconcile them. The greater number of Wollaston's strictly *The reader will observe that the argument is based, chemical papers, with the exception of those refernot on the fact of the heavenly bodies lacking atmospheres, which some of them may possess, but on their ring to physiology and pathology, are devoted to wanting atmospheres of the same nature as ours. We the exposition of points connected with the chemiscannot apply chemistry to ascertain whether oxygen and try of the metals. He was the discoverer of pallanitrogen, or the other gases of our atmosphere, envelope dium and rhodium, once interesting only as chemidistant globes; but we can bring optics to discover cal curiosities, but now finding important uses in whether a power to refract light such as our air possesses, exists around any of these spheres. From the text it will the arts. He discovered, also, the identity of be seen that no such power has been observed in any case. columbium and tantalum. He was the first to re cognize the existence of metallic titanium in the slags of iron furnaces; and he is the deviser of the important process by which platina is rendered malleable. He published, also, analyses of meteoric iron, and showed that potash exists in sea water. In consequence of this insufficiency of his tools, the analytical chemist was brought to a complete stand. Whole departments of his science lay around him unexplored and unconquered, tempting him by their beauty and their promise. He could only, however, fold his arms and gaze wistfully at them, like a defeated engineer before a city which his artillery and engines have failed to subdue. The majority of the essays in which these discoveries were made known, are of too limited and technical a character to admit of notice in the pages of our journal. There is one of them, however, It was at this crisis that Wollaston came forthat, on a process by which platina may be ren- ward to put a new weapon into the hands of the dered malleable," which cannot be dismissed with-chemical analyst. Several years before he turned out a word of explanation. his attention to the subject, scattered grains of a brilliant metal had been found in the sands of certain of the South American rivers. To this, from its resemblance to silver, or in their language plata, the Spaniards gave the name of platina, or little silver. This metal was found to resist the action of nearly every substance except aqua regia; to suffer no change, nor to become rusted by protracted exposure to the atmosphere; and to be perfectly infusible by the most powerful forge or furnace. It must seem curious to a general reader, that much value should be attached to a mere metallurgical process, however ingenious. He will be further perplexed by learning that the Royal Society, passing over Wollaston's claims to reward, as the author of important speculative, and purely scientific papers, selected this essay as the object of their special commendation. The strong words used by the council of the society are, Your council have deemed themselves bound to express their strong approbation of this interesting memoir by awarding a royal medal to its author, and they anticipate with confidence a general approbation of what they have done." It may help the reader to understand why the paper in question is esteemed so highly if he be made aware of the following facts. Among other bodies which the alchemists of the middle ages thought it possible to discover, and accordingly sought after, was a Universal Solvent, | or Alkahest as they named it. This imaginary fluid was to possess the power of dissolving every substance, whatever its nature, and to reduce all kinds of matter to the liquid form. It does not seem to have occurred to these ingenious dreamers to consider, that what dissolved everything, could be preserved in nothing. Of what shall we construct the vessel in which a fluid is to be kept, which hungers after all things, and can eat its way through adamant as swiftly as water steals through walls of ice? A universal solvent must require an equally universal non solubile in which it may be retained for use. Here then was a substance for the chemist's crucible, could a method of working it only be discovered. But the very properties which made its value certain, if it were wrought into vessels, forbade its being easily fashioned into them. It occurred in nature only in small grains which could not be melted, so that it was impossible, as with most other metals, to convert it into utensils by fusion. Neither was it possible by hammering to consolidate the grains into considerable masses, so that vessels could be beaten out of them, for the crude metal is very impure. Accordingly, it happened, that for years after the value of platina had been discovered, it could not be turned to account. Whole cargoes of the native metal, although it is now six times more costly than silver, are said to have lain unpurchased for years in London, before Wollaston devised his method of working it. That method was founded upon the property which platina possesses of agglutinating at a high temperature, though not melted, in the way iron does, so that, like that metal, it can be welded, and different pieces forged into one. This property could not, however, be directly applied to the native grains owing to their impurity and irregu larity in form. Wollaston commenced by dissolving the metal in aqua regia; purified it whilst in solution from the greater number of accompanying substances which alloyed it; and then, by the addition of sal ammoniac, precipitated it as an insoluble compound with chlorine and muriate of ammonia. When this compound was heated, these bodies were dissipated in vapor, and left the platina in the state of a fine black powder, which was further purified by The modern chemist's desire has lain in the opposite direction from that of his alchemical forefather. It is the non solubile, not the solvent, that he has sought after, and Wollaston supplied him with that in malleable platina. Long before the close of last century, the chemical analyst found the reagents he had occasion to make use of, alkahests or universal solvents enough, for the vessels in which he could contain them. For the greater number of purposes, glass and porcelain resist sufficiently the action of even the strongest acids, alkalies, and other powerful solvents. In some cases, however, they are attacked by these, and cannot be employed in accurate analysis. When-washing with water. ever, moreover, it is necessary to subject bodies to a high temperature along with active reagents, as, for example, in the fusion of minerals with alkalies, porcelain can seldom be employed, and is often worse than useless. It was in vain that chemists had recourse to silver and gold, as substitutes for the insufficient clay in the construction of their crucibles. These metals melt at comparatively low temperatures, and, before a sufficient heat can be attained to fuse the more refractory substances enclosed in them, they run into liquids, and the crucible and its contents are lost in a useless slag. It was only further necessary to fill a proper mould with this powder well moistened, and to subject it to powerful compression. By this process the powder cohered into a tolerably solid mass, which was gently heated by a charcoal fire, so as to expel the moisture and give it greater tenacity. It was afterwards subjected to the intensest heat of a wind furnace, and hammered while hot, so as completely to agglutinate its particles, and convert it into a solid ingot. This ingot or bar could then be flattened into leaf, drawn into wire, or submitted to any of the processes by which the most ductile metals are wrought. |