Utrecht, were the first to deal with this specific problem. Mr Rainey published, between 1857 and 1861, a series of valuable and thoughtful papers to shew that shell and bone and certain other organic structures were formed ãby a process of molecular coalescence, demonstrable in certain artificially-formed products18.ã Professor Harting, after thirty years of experimental work, published in 1872 a paper, which has become classical, entitled Recherches de Morphologie Synthûˋtique, sur la production artificielle de quelques formations calcaires organiques; his aim was to pave the way for a ãmorphologie synthûˋtique,ã as WûÑhler had laid the foundations of a ãchimie synthûˋtique,ã by his classical discovery forty years before. {421}
Rainey and Harting used similar methods, and these were such as many other workers have continued to employ,ãpartly with the direct object of explaining the genesis of organic forms and partly as an integral part of what is now known as Colloid Chemistry. The whole gist of the method was to bring some soluble salt of lime, such as the chloride or nitrate, into solution within a colloid medium, such as gum, gelatine or albumin; and then to precipitate it out in the form of some insoluble compound, such as the carbonate or oxalate. Harting found that, when he added a