The History of Chemistry, Volume 2 (of 2)Thomson, Thomas
History
The History of Chemistry, Volume 2 (of 2)
Thomson, Thomas
Chemistry -- History
The different tracts which he published, as they have been enumerated
by Hjelm, who gave an interesting account of Bergman to the Stockholm
Academy in the year 1785, amount to 106. They have been all collected
into six octavo volumes entitled "Opuscula Torberni Bergman Physica et
Chemica"--with the exception of his notes on Scheffer, his Sciagraphia,
and his chapter on Physical Geography, which was translated into
French, and published in the Journal des Mines (vol. iii. No. 15, p.
55). His Sciagraphia, which is an attempt to arrange minerals according
to their composition, was translated into English by Dr. Withering.
His notes on Scheffer were interspersed in an edition of the "Chemiske
Föreläsningar" of that chemist, published in 1774, which he seems to
have employed as a text-book in his lectures: or, at all events, the
work was published for the use of the students of chemistry at Upsala.
There was a new edition of it published, after Bergman's death, in the
year 1796, to which are appended Bergman's Tables of Affinities.
The most important of Bergman's chemical papers were collected by
himself, and constitute the three first volumes of his Opuscula. The
three last volumes of that work were published after his death. The
fourth volume was published at Leipsic, in 1787, by Hebenstreit, and
contains the rest of his chemical papers. The fifth volume was given
to the world in 1788, by the same editor. It contains three chemical
papers, and the rest of it is made up with papers on natural history,
electricity, and other branches of physics, which Bergman had published
in the earlier part of his life. The same indefatigable editor
published the sixth volume in 1790. It contains three astronomical
papers, two chemical, and a long paper on the means of preventing any
injurious effects from lightning. This was an oration, delivered before
the Royal Academy of Sciences of Stockholm, in 1764, probably at the
time of his admission into the academy.
It would serve little purpose in the present state of chemical
knowledge, to give a minute analysis of Bergman's papers. To judge
of their value, it would be necessary to compare them, not with our
present chemical knowledge, but with the state of the science when
his papers were published. A very short general view of his labours
will be sufficient to convey an idea of the benefits which the science
derived from them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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