Invention Timeline - Pierre Eugene Marcellin Berthollet, French Chemist; Discovered Acetylene in 1862
b. October 29, 1827 and d. ?
French chemist. He distinguished himself in the annals of mechanic arts by indicating the use of chlorine for dyeing. He also discovered acetylene an inflammable gas, about 1862.
In boyhood dreams my Fancy loved to look
Within the spirit-haunted cells of old,
Where great magicians dealt with things unknown;
Where crucibles and deadly alkalies,
Black liquors, crooked flasks, and frightful skulls,
Of Wisdom spake, that dared the realsm of Fear;-
Or, in laboratories richly built,
Where princess vied with plodding penury,
To tear the secret heart of nature out.
—Love’s Alchemy: H. W. Parker
I love it not, the crowded, murky town,
Yet there are treasures, which I fain would seize;
And Learning there extends her laurel crown-
Though crowns I reck not, nor her bald degrees-
Baubles designed the shallow mind to please.
But much I long to sit at Learning’s feet,
And drink her drafts of knowledge to the lees.
For this farewell each wild and calm retreat,
And welcome smoke and dust, the foul and noisy street.
—Alwyn: James C. Moffat
1836—Edmund Davy discovered calcium-carbide; in 1862 Wöhler of Göttingen and Berthelot of Paris obtained it in minute quantities; in 1892 it was accidentally discovered by Thomas L. Wilson in smelting for metallurgical purposes. Henri Moisseau of Paris announced its discovery about the same time. Acetylene gas is prepared commercially from it.
1902—Ethyl-Alcohol is said to have been produced commercially from acetylene in France.
