Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/860

840 give it the highest accuracy at the present time, it forms altogether a kind of comprehensive report upon the present state of the science in many of its most interesting and important aspects.

It may be remarked that the chemical inquiries detailed in this work took at first an analytical direction, with the object of isolating and identifying the proximate constituents or radicals of which organic compounds are constructed. Then they became synthetical, and were directed to the artificial building up or evolution of organic compounds. Some of these were already known as products of animal and vegetable life; while others, of at least equal complexity, were new additions to the category of organic bodies. In both cases their synthetical construction brought to light trustworthy evidence of their molecular architecture.

Dr. Frankland's investigations in applied chemistry, and especially those upon the purification of the sewage of towns, and the treatment of foul liquids from manufactories, and which were undertaken at the instigation of the Government, are most valuable. The results of the investigations on gas and water will be of service to engineers, manufacturers, agriculturists, local boards of health, and others interested either in the supply of gas and water to towns, the removal and utilization of foul drainage, or the health of populous places; for, in pursuing his inquiries Dr. Frankland did not confine himself to indispensable experiments and observations merely, but endeavored to discover the general principles underlying the various processes.

Dr. Frankland has been awarded honors from a large number of scientific bodies in England and on the Continent. He is Corresponding Member of the French Academy of Sciences; Foreign Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Bavaria; and of the Academies of Sciences of Berlin, St. Petersburg, and Bohemia. He is also Honorary Member of the Societies of Natural Sciences of Switzerland and of Göttingen; of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester; of the Chemical Societies of Germany, America, and Lehigh University, United States; of the Sanitarian Society of Dresden, and of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain.