Abstract
IT is a hard matter to give a just account of this pamphlet. The views propounded by the author are so entirely different from those usually held by chemists, and according to the author's own statement they have been so little studied by others, that it is difficult to know exactly how to treat the subject. We should scarcely be justified in saying that the whole system is mere imagination, though some hold this opinion; but the book, though evidently written with the intensest earnestness, is the work of an enthusiast, which will explain the bitter complaints he makes against modern chemists for not taking more notice of molecular morphology. The author endeavours to explain the formation of all matter by the aggregation of the ethereal element, supposing that all bodies tend to assume a symmetrical, and more or less spherical form. The simplest form of aggregation Dr. Macvicar considers to be the tetrad, consisting of four specks of the material element so arranged in space that they form the angles of a tetrahedron, the lines joining them indicating the attracting and repelling forces operating between the units. Two tetrads are also assumed to join base to base producing the bitetrad, and from these two forms the tetrad and the bitetrad, all the atoms and molecules of our planet are supposed to be produced. This tetrad by attracting another unit opposite to one of its faces constitutes a group of five units, considered to be the atoms of hydrogen, and with the atomic weight of five. The author proceeds to show the mode of genesis of many other elements and compounds by the juxtaposition of these elemental forms. By calculation he can determine by his system the specific gravities of solids and liquids referred to water as unity, in a manner similar to that by which the densities of gases and vapours may be deduced by the old system. This alone would seem to show that the method deserves more attention from chemists than it has yet received. The non-reception of this molecular morphology may be ascribed to several causes: the diction of the author is peculiar, and he writes in a dogmatic manner, which might be expected in a theological work, but is not usually found in a treatise on natural science; then he pushes his inferences to such an extent (or as some would say, rides his hobby so hard) that his conclusions appear somewhat ludicrous, unsupported as they are by experiment: thus he traces the coincidence between the assumed hexagonal form of the molecule of aqueous vapour and the shape of the minimum snow-flake and ice-flower, and “the inflorescence of plants of the monocotyledonous order, in which an aqueous tissue predominates”; he thinks that one of the forms of aqueous vapour which occupies half the volume of the other, may possibly be converted into the second variety at a high temperature, and thus explain the explosion of steam boilers. Again the dimorphism of water may be the cause of the production of animal heat; for water in the body may be transformed from one of its varieties into the other with evolution of heat; but on escaping from the body as perspiration, the inverse action takes place and cold is produced. But underneath all these extravagances there may be a stratum of truth, and we hope that either the author or some one who understands and accepts his views thoroughly, will so develop them as to ensure their reception by chemists.
A Sketch of a Philosophy. Part III. The Chemistry of Natural Substances. Illustrated by two folding plates and 150 figurate diagrams of molecules in the text.
By John G. Macvicar (Williams and Norgate, 1870.)
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A Sketch of a Philosophy. Part III. The Chemistry of Natural Substances. Illustrated by two folding plates and 150 figurate diagrams of molecules in the text. Nature 2, 295 (1870). https://doi.org/10.1038/002295a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/002295a0