view that equality of composition could not coexist in two bodies, A
and B, with differences in their respective physical and chemical
properties. Two years later, in 1830, Woehler published, jointly with
Liebig, the results of a research on cyanic and cyanuric acid and on
urea. Berzelius, in his report to the Swedish Academy of Sciences,
called it the most important of all researches in physics, chemistry,
and mineralogy published in that year. The results obtained were quite
unexpected, and furnished additional and most important evidence in
favor of the doctrine of isomerism. In the year 1834, Woehler and Liebig
published an investigation of the oil of bitter almonds. They prove by
their experiments that a group of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms
can behave like an element, take the place of an element, and can be
exchanged for elements in chemical compounds. Thus the foundation was
laid of the doctrine of compound radicals, a doctrine which has had
and has still the most profound influence on the development of
chemistry--so much so that its importance can hardly be exaggerated.
Since the discovery of potassium by Davy, it was assumed that alumina
also, the basis of clay, contained a metal in combination with oxygen.
Davy, Oerstedt, and Berzelius attempted the extraction of this metal,
but could not succeed. Woehler then worked on the same subject, and
discovered the metal aluminum. To him also is due the isolation of the
elements yttrium, beryllium, and titanium, the observation that silicium
can be obtained in crystals, and that some meteoric stones contain
organic matter. He analyzed a number of meteorites, and for many years
wrote the digest on the literature of meteorites in the _Jahresbericht
der Chemie_; he possessed, perhaps, the best private collection of
meteoric stones and irons existing. Woehler and Sainte Claire Deville
discovered the crystalline form of boron, and Woehler and Buff the
hydrogen compounds of silicium and a lower oxide of the same element.
This is by no means a full statement of Woehler's scientific work; it