Chemistry has from its infancy been pre-eminently the science of wonders. In her laboratory the alchemist and the magician have revelled uncontrolled, and from her treasures was forged the sceptre which was so long and so fatally wielded over human reason. The changes which take place in the bodies immediately around us are too few in number and too remote from observation to excite much of our notice; but when the substances procured directly from nature, or formed casually by art, become objects of investigation, they exhibit in their simple or combined actions the most extraordinary effects. The phenomena which they display, and the products which they form, so little resemble those with which we are familiar, that the most phlegmatic and the least speculative observer must have anticipated from them the creation of new and valuable compounds. It can scarcely, therefore, be a matter of surprise that minds of the highest order, and spirits of the loftiest ambition, should have sought in the transmutations of chemistry for those splendid products which were conceived to be most conducive to human happiness. The disciple of Mammon grew pale over his crucible in his ardour to convert the baser metals into gold; the philosopher pined in secret for the universal solvent which might develop the elements of the precious stones and yield to him the means of their production; and the philanthropist aspired after a universal medicine, which might arrest disease in its course, and prolong indefinitely the life of man. To us, who live under the meridian of knowledge, such expectations must appear as presumptuous as they were delusive; but when we consider that gold and silver were actually produced by chemical processes from the rude ores of lead and copper--that some of the most refractory bodies had yielded to the disintegrating and solvent powers of chemical agents, and that the mercurial preparations of the Arabian physicians had operated like charms in the cure of diseases that had resisted the feeble medicines of the times, we may find some apology for the extravagant expectations of the alchemists. An object of lofty pursuit, even if it be one of impossible attainment, is not unworthy philosophical ambition. Though we cannot scale the summit of the volcanic cone, we may yet reach its heaving flanks; and though we cannot decompose its loftiest fires, we may yet study the lava which they have melted and the products which they have sublimed. In like manner, though the philosopher’s stone has not been found, chemistry has derived rich accessions from its search;--though the general solvent has not been obtained, yet the diamond and the gems have surrendered to science their adamantine strength;--and though the elixir of life has never been distilled, yet other medicines have soothed the “ills which flesh is heir to,” and prolonged in no slight degree the average term of our existence.