Volume 1

A system of chemistry...In four volumes / By J. Murray.

  • John Murray
Date:
1809
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A system of chemistry...In four volumes / By J. Murray. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    4 INTRODUCTION. pies in exciting combustion, in promoting vegetation, and in sustaining animal life. Water, in a system of Mechani- cal Philosophy, is a subject of attention only in so far a« it is susceptible of motion, and affects bodies by its impulse or gravity. But in Chemistry its numerous combinations are investigated ; its elements are discovered, and the operation of these elements, as they are disengaged by the decompositions it suffers, is traced, not only in mere che- mical processes, but on a scale of greater magnitude in some of the most important operations of nature. Lastly, Solid substances are regarded by the Mechanical Philoso- pher, only as they are endowed with figure, hardness, or cohesion, or as presented to him in various states of motion. But from the Chemist they claim a more min- ute examination, 'as to the actions which the particles of each exert towards those of others, and the combinations into which they thus enter. In all these cases, the Me- chanical Philosopher attends only to the sensible motions of masses of matter j the Chemical Philosopher to the agencies of their minute particles, producing not merely change of figure or of place, but alterations in their con- stitution and powers. From the class of actions v/hich it belongs to Che- mistry to investigate, arise numerous applications to purposes of practical utility, or to the elucidation of na- tural phenomena j many of the changes which occur in Nature being the results of chemical operations, and many of the arts consisting merely in a series of chemical processes. These applications, in all their extent, it would not be possible to trace within the limits of an in- troductory discourse. A general sketch only can be pre-
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