This remarkable record for a first research was presented by
Mitscherlich to the Berlin Academy on the 9th December 1819. During the
summer of the same year Berzelius visited Berlin, and was so struck with
the abilities of Mitscherlich, then twenty-five years old, that he
persuaded him to accompany him on his return to Stockholm, and
Mitscherlich continued his investigations there under the eye of the
great chemist. His first work at Stockholm consisted of a more complete
study of the acid and neutral phosphates and arsenates of potash, soda,
ammonia, and lead. He showed that in every case an arsenate crystallises
in the same form as the corresponding phosphate. Moreover, in 1821 he
demonstrated that sodium dihydrogen phosphate, NaH_{2}PO_{4},
crystallises with a molecule of water of crystallisation in two
different forms, both belonging to the rhombic system but with quite
different axial ratios; this was consequently a similar occurrence to
that which he had observed with the sulphates of the iron and zinc
groups.
It was while Mitscherlich was in Stockholm that Berzelius suggested to
him that a name should be given to the new discovery that analogous
elements can replace each other in their crystallised compounds without
any apparent change of crystalline form. Mitscherlich, therefore, termed
the phenomenon “isomorphism,” from ἰσός, equal to, and μορφή, shape. The
term “isomorphous” thus strictly means “equal shaped,” implying not only
similarity in the faces displayed, but also absolute equality of the
crystal angles. The fact that the crystals of isomorphous substances are
not absolutely identical in form, but only very similar, was not likely
to be appreciated by Mitscherlich at this time. For the reflecting
goniometer had only been invented by Wollaston in 1809, and accurate
instruments reading to minutes of arc were mechanical rarities. It will
be shown in the sequel, as the result of the author’s investigations,
that there _are_ angular differences, none the less real because
relatively very small, between the members of such series. But
Mitscherlich was not in the position to observe them. It must be
remembered, moreover, that he was primarily a chemist, and that he had
only acquired sufficient crystallographic knowledge to enable him to
detect the system of symmetry, and the principal forms (groups of faces
having equal value as regards the symmetry) developed on the crystals
which he prepared. His doctrine of isomorphism, accepted in this broad
sense, proved of immediate and important use in chemistry. For there
were uncertainties as to the equivalents of some of the chemical
elements, as tabulated by Berzelius, then the greatest authority on the
subject, and these were at once cleared up by the application of the
principle of isomorphism.
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