登陆注册
15444900000069

第69章 IV(2)

CHEMISTRY. includes the art of separating and combining the elements of matter, and the study of the changes produced by these operations.

We can hardly say too much of what it has contributed to our knowledge of the universe and our power of dealing with its materials. It has given us a catalogue raisonne of the substances found upon our planet, and shown how everything living and dead is put together from them. It is accomplishing wonders before us every day, such as Arabian story-tellers used to string together in their fables. It spreads the, sensitive film on the artificial retina which looks upon us through the optician's lens for a few seconds, and fixes an image that will outlive its original. It questions the light of the sun, and detects the vaporized metals floating around the great luminary,--iron, sodium, lithium, and the rest,--as if the chemist of our remote planet could fill his bell-glasses from its fiery atmosphere. It lends the power which flashes our messages in thrills that leave the lazy chariot of day behind them. It seals up a few dark grains in iron vases, and lo! at the touch of a single spark, rises in smoke and flame a mighty Afrit with a voice like thunder and an arm that shatters like an earthquake. The dreams of Oriental fancy have become the sober facts of our every-day life, and the chemist is the magician to whom we owe them.

To return to the colder scientific aspect of chemistry. It has shown us how bodies stand affected to each other through an almost boundless range of combinations. It has given us a most ingenious theory to account for certain fixed relations in these combinations.

It has successfully eliminated a great number of proximate compounds, more or less stable, from organic structures. It has invented others which form the basis of long series of well-known composite substances. In fact, we are perhaps becoming overburdened with our list of proximate principles, demonstrated and hypothetical.

How much nearer have we come to the secret of force than Lully and Geber and the whole crew of juggling alchemists? We have learned a great deal about the how, what have we learned about the why?

Why does iron rust, while gold remains untarnished, and gold amalgamate, while iron refuses the alliance of mercury?

The alchemists called gold Sol, the sun, and iron Mars, and pleased themselves with fancied relations between these substances and the heavenly bodies, by which they pretended to explain the facts they observed. Some of their superstitions have lingered in practical medicine to the present day, but chemistry has grown wise enough to confess the fact of absolute ignorance.

What is it that makes common salt crystallize in the form of cubes, and saltpetre in the shape of six-sided prisms? We see no reason why it should not have been just the other way, salt in prisms and saltpetre in cubes, or why either should take an exact geometrical outline, any more than coagulating albumen.

But although we had given up attempting to explain the essential nature of affinities and of crystalline types, we might have supposed that we had at least fixed the identity of the substances with which we deal, and determined the laws of their combination. All at once we find that a simple substance changes face, puts off its characteristic qualities and resumes them at will;--not merely when we liquefy or vaporize a solid, or reverse the process; but that a solid is literally transformed into another solid under our own eyes.

We thought we knew phosphorus. We warm a portion of it sealed in an empty tube, for about a week. It has become a brown infusible substance, which does not shine in the dark nor oxidate in the air.

We heat it to 500 F., and it becomes common phosphorus again. We transmute sulphur in the same singular way. Nature, you know, gives us carbon in the shape of coal and in that of the diamond. It is easy to call these changes by the name allotropism, but not the less do they confound our hasty generalizations.

These facts of allotropism have some corollaries connected with them rather startling to us of the nineteenth century. There may be other transmutations possible besides those of phosphorus and sulphur.

When Dr. Prout, in 1840, talked about azote and carbon being "formed" in the living system, it was looked upon as one of those freaks of fancy to which philosophers, like other men, are subject. But when Professor Faraday, in 1851, says, at a meeting of the British Association, that "his hopes are in the direction of proving that bodies called simple were really compounds, and may be formed artificially as soon as we are masters of the laws influencing their combinations,"--when he comes forward and says that he has tried experiments at transmutation, and means, if his life is spared, to try them again,--how can we be surprised at the popular story of 1861, that Louis Napoleon has established a gold-factory and is glutting the mints of Europe with bullion of his own making?

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • “上火”的凉茶:解密加多宝和王老吉的营销之战

    “上火”的凉茶:解密加多宝和王老吉的营销之战

    加多宝集团与广药集团争夺“王老吉”的战火从2012年烧到了2013年,引发了行业内外的持续关注。从2008年汶川大地震的亿元捐款,到“怕上火喝王老吉”成为妇孺皆知的凉茶宣传语,再到2010年巨资赞助广州亚运会,加多宝集团凭借其强大的营销力度,将原本属于广药集团的百年民族品牌“王老吉”推向了千家万户2012年,广药集团却一纸诉状,将加多宝告上了法庭,要求加多宝停止销售和生产“王老吉”商标的产品,拉开了“王老吉”之争的序幕。本书为读者再现了“王老吉”商标之争的前因后果,对凉茶饮料行业的现状深入剖析。
  • 仙侠情缘

    仙侠情缘

    在一次探险中,为了救一苹可爱的白貂,沐风无意间遇见了苏月琴││一个智慧和美丽的化身,开始了一段跨越时空的爱恋为了心中的爱人,沐风开始了他的修真之路,并抛开一切,和苏月琴一起进入仙侠的世界,在这里开始一段奇妙的历程……
  • 妖孽校草:baby别乱跑

    妖孽校草:baby别乱跑

    第一次见面她拽的不可一世,一气之下夺走了她的初吻,竟然让他沉迷;第二次见面她哭的像一个孩子,他默默的在心中下定决心要让她成为全世界最快乐的女孩,于是“臭丫头,来亲亲~”“滚。”“臭丫头,本少爷不开森了,要抱抱!”后来他渐渐的发现其实他一直守护着的女孩也有一颗向往平常生活的心。“臭丫头你到底有多少秘密呢?”他遇见她,她的世界注定要翻天覆地!
  • 欲潮

    欲潮

    很多年以后都无法忘记,那时你眼里灿烂的光辉,你那时认真的感动得我想哭出声来的表情,很多很多年以后,都不能忘记。到死都不能忘记。
  • 市井奇话

    市井奇话

    本书摘选了《吴保安弃家赎友》、《吕大郎还金完骨肉》、《钝秀才一朝交泰》、《桂员外穷途忏悔》、《刘小官雌雄兄弟》、《施润泽滩阙遇友》、《张廷秀逃生救父》、《徐老仆义愤成家》、《转运汉巧遇洞庭红,波斯胡指破鼍龙壳》、《刘东山夸技顺城门,十八兄奇踪村酒肆》、《陶家翁大雨留宾,蒋震卿片言得妇》、《张溜儿熟布迷魂局,陆蕙娘立决到头缘》、《钱多处白丁横带,运退时刺史当艄》、《进香客莽看金刚经,出狱僧巧完法会分》、《百和坊将无作有》、《缘投波浪里,恩向小窗亲》(《幻影》)。
  • 就是爱了怎么滴

    就是爱了怎么滴

    你有没有这样爱过一个人,用尽生命里所有的力气来守护他。你有没有这样爱过一个人,哪怕知道爱他会让自己万劫不复,也会心甘情愿的说:“爱他就是爱他,不管对错,我都爱”。你有没有这样爱过一个人,爱到即使是生命都可以不管不顾,只想和她生死相随。你有没有这样爱过一个人,哪怕世界上所有人反对,哪怕你爱的人都不爱你,你还会坚持下去。你有没有这样爱过一个人,,会因为他的离开而惊慌失措,会每天想着他会不会回来,会因为他的离开就夜夜哭泣,想念到看到他就惊喜的昏倒。你有没有这样爱过一个人,你会认为只要有它,不管怎么样都会感觉自己很幸福,“爱你就是爱你,不管对错,我都只爱你,就够了”。
  • 青春里没有返程的旅途

    青春里没有返程的旅途

    青春岁月里的遗憾,美好,留念,回忆,过往,珍惜,爱恋,苦恋,虐恋都会尝试去写出来,在这里会让你明白珍惜一切才是最美好的。
  • 青华秘文

    青华秘文

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 月玲珑的预言之星蝶飞旅

    月玲珑的预言之星蝶飞旅

    湖畔的猫族,星族的预言。迷茫的众猫,陌生的地方。在这些面前,他们将怎么办?“几个传奇,离开森林,穿过林地与平原、天与地,到达四季,使蝴蝶飞上星空,照亮银尾之泪。”注:添加了人物,纯属自编。如有雷同,纯属巧合。不喜勿喷,不做不对事。第一次写文,不好,是小学生哪!求谅解。
  • 毒神降世:腹黑王爷太欠揍

    毒神降世:腹黑王爷太欠揍

    月黑风高时,杀人放火夜。喻沁漪,专注坑人十三年,最后竟然把自己给坑死了,这难道就是坑人的新境界?操,老天,不带这么玩的。不过,索性她人品太好,被自己坑死后竟然穿越了!这是要让我再次走上人生巅峰的机遇啊!