Chemical crystallography before X-rays

Chemical crystallography before X-rays describes how chemical crystallography developed as a science up to the discovery of X-rays by Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen in 1895. In the period before X-rays, crystallography can be divided into three broad areas: geometric crystallography culminating in the discovery of the 230 space groups in 1891–4, physical crystallography and chemical crystallography.

Up until 1800 neither crystallography nor chemistry were established sciences in the modern sense; as the 19th century progressed both sciences developed in parallel. In the 18th century chemistry was in a transitional period as it moved from the mystical and philosophical approach of the alchemists, to the experimental and logical approach of the scientific chemists such as Antoine Lavoisier, Humphry Davy and John Dalton.^[1]

Before X-rays, chemical crystallographic research involved observation using a goniometer,^[2] a microscope, and reference to crystal classes, tables of crystal angles, axial ratios, and the ratio between molecular weight and density (M/ρ).^[3] In this period crystallography was a science supported by empirical laws (law of constancy of interfacial angles, law of rational indices, law of symmetry) based on observations rather than theory.^[4]

The history of chemical crystallography covers a broad range of topics including isomorphism, polymorphism, molecular chirality and the interaction with mineralogy, structural chemistry and solid-state physics.^[5]

Symmetry

During the 19th century crystallography was progressively transformed into an empirical and mathematical science by the adoption of symmetry concepts.^[6] In 1832 Franz Ernst Neumann used symmetry considerations when studying double refraction in crystals.^[7] Woldemar Voigt, who was a student of Neumann, in 1885 formalized Neumann's principle as "if a crystal is invariant with respect to certain symmetry operations, any of its physical properties must also be invariant with respect to the same symmetry operations".^[8][9] Neumann's principle is sometimes referred to as the Neumann–Minnigerode–Curie principle based on later work by Bernhard Minnigerode^[10] (another student of Neumann) and Pierre Curie.^[11] Curie's principle "the symmetries of the causes are to be found in the effects" is a generalization of Neumann's principle.^[12]

The relations between symmetry and physical and chemical properties were established throughout the 19th century: the notion of hemihedry^[13] (Weiss, 1819; Delafosse, 1840), the 7 crystal systems (Mohs, 1822), the notion of point lattice (Seeber, 1824), the 32 crystal classes (Frankenheim, 1826; Hessel, 1830; Gadolin, 1869), molecular chirality (Pasteur, 1848), the 14 Bravais lattices (Bravais, 1850), the 65 chiral groups that contain only proper symmetry operations – rotations, translations and roto-translations (Sohncke 1879), and, finally, the 230 space groups (Fedorov, 1891; Schoenflies, 1891; Barlow, 1894).^[14]

16th century

Cannonballs piled on a triangular (front) and rectangular (back) base, both face-centered cubic lattices.

In the first half of the 16th century Paracelsus proposed a theory of mineral formation as an analogy to fruit-bearing plants.^[15] In 1550 Gerolamo Cardano made an early attempt to explain the shape of crystals as the result of a close packing of spheres.^[16] In 1591 Thomas Harriot studied the close packing of cannonballs (spheres).^[17] In 1597 Andreas Libavius recognized the geometrical characteristics of crystals and identified salts from their crystal shape.^[18]

17th century

Drawing by Kepler (1611) of square (A) and hexagonal (B) packings^[19]

Cleavage planes in a crystal of Iceland spar (Huygens, 1690) ^[20]

In 1611 Johannes Kepler studied the packing of spheres, in order to explain the hexagonal symmetry of snow crystals.^[21] Kepler demonstrated that in a compact packing each sphere has six neighbours in the same plane, three in the plane above, and three in the plane below, for a total of twelve touching spheres.^[22] Kepler concluded that π/(3√2) = 0.74084 is the maximum possible density amongst any arrangement of spheres — this became known as the Kepler conjecture.^[23] The conjecture was finally proved by Thomas Hales in 1998.^[24]

By the second half of the 17th century the ideas of Paracelsus had been displaced by a more scientific approach to chemistry, geology, mineralogy, and the emerging field of crystallography.^[25] In his book The Sceptical Chymist of 1661,^[26] Robert Boyle criticized the traditional composition of materials, as represented by the teaching of Aristotle and Paracelsus, and initiated the modern understanding of chemical elements using the words "perfectly unmingled bodies". Boyle argued that matter's basic elements consisted of various types of particles, termed "corpuscles", which were capable of arranging themselves into groups (molecules).^[27] Boyle was one of the earliest researchers to use the term crystal for crystalline substances apart from quartz.^[28] In 1665 Robert Hooke attempted to explain crystal morphology based on the stacking of atoms. In his work Micrographia^[29] he reported on the regularity of quartz crystals observed with the recently invented microscope, and proposed that they are formed by spherules.^[30]

Nicolas Steno rejected Paracelsus's proposed organic origin for crystals.^[31] Steno first observed the law of constancy of interfacial angles when studying quartz crystals^[32] (De solido intra solidum naturaliter contento, Florence, 1669),^[33] and noted that, although the crystals of a substance differed in appearance from one to another, the angles between corresponding faces were always the same.^[34] Steno's work can be considered as the beginning of crystallography as an independent discipline.^[35]

In 1678 Christiaan Huygens proposed a structural explanation of the double refraction of calcite based on ellipsoidal atoms.^[36] Huygens discovered the polarization of light by Iceland spar, a transparent form of calcite, and published his results in his Traité de la Lumière.^[37]

Domenico Guglielmini's publications of 1688 (Riflessioni filosofiche dedotte dalle figure de Sali) and 1705 (De salibus dissertatio epistolaris physico-medico-mechanica) concluded that the earliest forms (he noted cube, rhombohedral parallelepiped, hexagonal prism, and octahedron) of various salt crystals are characteristic of each substance, are identical in form, indivisible, and have faces with identical inclinations to each other.^[38]

18th century

Contact goniometer of the Carangeot type

Calcite scalenohedron crystal constructed from small building blocks (molécules intégrantes) using the law of decrements of René Just Haüy.^[39]

In 1723 Moritz Anton Cappeller published Prodromus Crystallographiae, the first treatise on crystal shapes.^[40] The introduction of the term crystallography is attributed to Cappeller.^[41] In 1735 Carl Linnaeus, who is known for his system of classification of biological species in his Systema Naturae, also classified minerals and stated that "their transparency is derived from their atomical construction".^[42] In 1745 Guillaume-François Rouelle carried out a microscopic analysis of sea salt and proposed that the crystals were composed of cubic particles.^[43] In 1758 Roger Joseph Boscovich published^[44] his atomic theory which stated that particles of matter were linked by attractive and repulsive forces and that the solid so formed was compressible rather than rigid; this would become relevant in the 19th century when Haüy theorised that crystals were constructed from identical units stacked up without spaces.^[45]

The idea of a polyhedral molecular unit of crystal structure was promoted by Pierre-Joseph Macquer in his handbook Dictionnaire de chymie of 1766.^[46] In 1767 de:Christian Friedrich Gotthard Westfeld wrote that calcite crystals could be built from rhombohedra.^[47] In 1773 Torbern Bergman, a leader in the field of chemical analysis, described the crystal forms of calcite and stated that all the forms could be built up from the cleavage rhombohedron.^[48] Bergman developed a classification of minerals based on chemical characteristics (extending the work of Linnaeus), with subclasses organized by their external shapes, and defined seven primary crystal forms.^[49]

With Jean-Baptiste L. Romé de l'Isle's Essai de cristallographie published in 1772^[50] and Cristallographie published in 1783^[51] the scientific approach to crystal structure began. Romé de l'Isle described over 500 crystal forms and accurately measured the interfacial angles of a great variety of crystals, using the goniometer designed by his student Arnould Carangeot. Romé de l'Isle noted that the angles are characteristic of a substance, thus generalizing the law of constancy of angles postulated by Steno.^[52] Romé de l'Isle considered that the shape of a crystal is a consequence of the packing of elemental particles, and defined six primitive forms.^[53]

In 1781 René Just Haüy (often termed the "Father of Modern Crystallography")^[54] discovered that crystals always cleave along crystallographic planes. Based on this observation, and the fact that the inter-facial angles in each crystal species always have the same value, Haüy concluded that crystals must be periodic and composed of regularly arranged layers of tiny polyhedra (molécules intégrantes).^[55] This theory explained why all crystal planes are related by small rational numbers (the law of rational indices). In 1784 René-Just Haüy published Essai d'une théorie sur la structure des cristaux, appliquée à plusieurs genres de substances cristallisées in which he stated his law of decrements: a crystal is composed of molecules arranged periodically in three dimensions without leaving any gaps.^[56] Haüy's molecular crystal structure theory assumed that molécules intégrantes were specific in shape and composition for every compound.^[57] Haüy developed a mathematical theory of crystal structure that turned out to be remarkably accurate and gave crystallography a legitimate place among the sciences.^[58]

Early 19th century

Possible ice structures constructed from spheres (Dalton, 1808).^[59]

Possible molecular structures of crystals built from spheres and ellipsoids (Wollaston, 1813).^[60]

From the late 18th century it became apparent that a crystal of a substance was composed of units, whether thought of as atoms, ions, molecules, or polyhedra, in a regular spatial arrangement, termed its crystal structure.^[3]

The most notable early theory for crystal structures was that of René Just Haüy. In 1801 Haüy, published his Traité de Minéralogie^[61] in four volumes, the last of which was an atlas of plates which was considered "among the most wonderful of the 19th century".^[62] It has been described as "a work of comprehensive insight, and much of it, written with literary fluency".^[63] In this work Haüy described how the law of rational indices establishes relationships between the orientations of the crystal faces, and explains that crystalline solids are formed by replicas of what would now be considered a unit cell.^[64] Haüy's theory called for fixed mineral species (based on their molécule intégrante), fixed crystal morphology, and constant chemical composition. This was a mineralogical equivalent to the law of definite proportions in chemistry.^[65]

John G. Burke (1966) and de:Hans-Werner Schütt (1984) proposed Haüy's crystal structure theory as an example of a paradigm in the sense of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn (1962).^[66] In 1822 Haüy published Traité de Cristallographie and updated version of his work of 1801. Haüy postulated, "to each specific substance with a well defined chemical composition, capable of existence in a crystalline form, there corresponds a shape that is specific and characteristic of that substance."^[67]

In 1808 John Dalton published his atomic theory of matter. In Dalton’s theory, there were four key assertions: "matter is made up of roughly spherical atoms, which were indivisible and indestructible; all atoms of a given element are identical in mass and properties; compounds are formed by a combination of two or more different kinds of atoms; and chemical reactions involve the rearrangement of atoms".^[68] In his book A New System of Chemical Philosophy,^[69] crystals are considered as a periodic arrangement of spherical atoms.^[70] However, Dalton stated that it was premature to form any theory of crystallization.^[71] Kuhn proposed Dalton's atomic theory as an example of a paradigm in which Dalton asserted that atoms can only combine in simple, whole-number ratios (law of multiple proportions). Under this new paradigm, any reaction which did not occur in fixed proportion could not be a chemical process.^[72]

There was a contradiction between the crystallographic and chemical paradigms. Haüy's theory asserted that crystals were composed of polyhedral units stacked up in three dimensions without gaps; Dalton's theory, by contrast, implied that crystals were constructed by a periodic arrangement of spherical atoms in space.^[73] Haüy's theory was generally accepted by his fellow mineralogists in the period 1801–1815^[74] but then came under attack from the German dynamist school led by Christian Samuel Weiss.^[75] Weiss and his followers studied the external symmetry of crystals rather than their internal structure.^[76] In 1819, Weiss demonstrated the generality of the phenomenon of hemihedry (half of the vertices/edges/faces of a crystal act differently from the other half), thus challenging Haüy's holohedral approach (all vertices/edges/faces of a crystal act in the same manner).^[77] Haüy's crystal structure theory was criticised as over-simplistic by William Hyde Wollaston in 1809^[78] and by Henry James Brooke in 1819.^[79] Haüy also tended to ignore experimental results that contradicted his structural theory, such as those achieved with the more accurate reflection goniometer^[80] invented by Wollaston in 1809.^[81]

In 1813 Wollaston adopted Dalton's ideas and proposed using sphere packing to model crystal structures.^[82] In 1814 André-Marie Ampère published a theory of the chemical combination of substances, based on Haüy's polyhedral forms.^[83] However, Ampère's work had little impact on contemporary chemists.^[84]

In 1819 David Brewster classified crystals according to their optical properties, as isotropic, uniaxial, or biaxial.^[85] In a paper published in 1830 Brewster attempted to relate the phenomenon of double refraction to the arrangement of the molecules in crystals. If a crystal has three axes at right angles to each other then, if they are equivalent, the crystal is isotropic, if two are equivalent and the third different, the crystal is uniaxial, and if all three are different, the crystal is biaxial.^[86] In 1822 John Herschel proposed a causal relationship between the handedness of quartz crystals (right- or left-handed) and the direction of their optical rotation.^[87]

In 1840 de:Friedrich Ludwig Hünefeld described the first crystallization of a protein; Hünefeld obtained lamellar crystals (later identified as haemoglobin) by putting the blood of an earthworm between two slides.^[88]

Isomorphism

Eilhard Mitscherlich

Goniometers

Mitscherlich discovered isomorphism (1819)^[89] and improved the reflecting goniometer (1843)^[90]

Originally, René Just Haüy considered that each chemical compound had a characteristic crystalline form.^[91] However, based on his 1808 work with aragonite^[92] and his earlier studies of calcite, which are two different forms of calcium carbonate (CaCO₃), Haüy had to concede that substances with the same chemical composition but different molecular arrangements could have different crystalline forms.^[93]

In 1819 Eilhard Mitscherlich discovered the law of isomorphism which states that compounds which contain the same number of atoms, and have similar structures, tend to exhibit similar crystal forms.^[94] Mitscherlich carried out the first systematic research on the dependence of crystal forms on their chemical nature.^[95] The discovery of isomorphism was the first major step in chemical crystallography^[3] and Emil Wohlwill regarded Mitscherlich's work on isomorphism as a milestone in the history of the atomic-molecular theory.^[96] The discovery of the phenomena of isomorphism and polymorphism dealt a clear blow to Haüy's crystal structure theory.^[97]

Mitscherlich’s findings were a central consideration of the atomic weight determinations in 1819 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius, a leading proponent of Dalton’s atomic theory. Berzelius classified minerals by their chemical composition rather than by their crystal morphology, as was the established practice.^[98] Mitscherlich’s research, together with the work of Alexis Thérèse Petit and Pierre-Louis Dulong that heat capacities of solids vary with temperature and inversely with atomic weight, led Berzelius to declare them as a positive confirmation of the atomic theory.^[99]

A contemporary historical review of the development of isomorphism in the 19th century was written by Andreas Artsruni.^[100]

Polymorphism

Friedrich Wöhler

Justus von Liebig

Discoverers of the first polymorphic organic substance (1832)^[101]

In crystallography, polymorphism is the phenomenon where a compound can crystallize into more than one crystal structure; in the case of elements the term allotropy is sometimes used.^[102] An example of polymorphism is titanium dioxide (TiO₂), which occurs in four known natural polymorphic forms (minerals with the same composition but different structure): brookite (orthorhombic), akaogiite (monoclinic), anatase (tetragonal) and rutile (tetragonal).

Eilhard Mitscherlich discovered polymorphism ("dimorphism") in his studies of sodium phosphate (1821) and sulphur (1823).^[103] In the 1830s the development of the microscope enhanced observations of polymorphism and aided Moritz Ludwig Frankenheim’s studies.^[104] Frankenheim was able to demonstrate methods to induce crystal phase changes, for example the use of solvents or physical scratching, and formally summarized his findings on the nature of polymorphism.^[105] Soon after, the more sophisticated polarized light microscope came into use, and it provided better visualization of crystalline phases allowing crystallographers to distinguish between different polymorphs. The hot stage was invented and fitted to a polarized light microscope by Otto Lehmann in about 1877. This invention helped crystallographers determine melting points and observe polymorphic transitions.^[106]

The first polymorphic organic substance, benzamide, was discovered by Friedrich Wöhler and Justus von Liebig in 1832.^[107]

In 1870 Paul Groth defined wikt:morphotropy as the state of two crystals whose similar physical structure is due to similar chemical composition.^[108] Groth examined the change in symmetry of a crystal as a result of the replacement of a hydrogen atom by another univalent atom or radical.^[109] Morphotropy is also referred to as isogonism^[110] in which each vertex is surrounded by the same kinds of face in the same or reverse order, and with the same angles between corresponding faces.

In 1897 Wilhelm Ostwald introduced Ostwald's rule,^[111] to describe the formation of polymorphs. The rule states that usually the less stable polymorph crystallizes first.^[112] Ostwald's rule is not a universal law but a common tendency observed in nature.^[113]

Molecular chirality

Louis Pasteur

Dextro and levorotary forms of tartrate crystals

Discoverer of molecular chirality (1848)^[114]

In 1811 François Arago constructed a polariscope and used it to discover that quartz crystals would rotate the plane of polarization of polarized light.^[115] Shortly after Jean-Baptiste Biot found a similar optical rotation effect for solutions, for example tartaric acid, and concluded that the effect was a inherent property of certain molecules.^[116]

In 1830 Jöns Jacob Berzelius discovered that tartaric and racemic acids have the same elementary composition, and concluded that a difference in the arrangement of the atoms in the molecules creates compounds with different chemical properties; in the same paper Berzelius suggested the term “isomerism” for the phenomenon.^[117]

In 1831 Mitscherlich was asked by Berzelius to study the tartrates in order to determine the differences between two isomers, tartaric acid and racemic acid.^[118] By 1832, Jean-Baptiste Biot had discovered that tartaric acid from grape juice was dextrorotatory and that racemic acid was optically inactive. In 1844 Mitscherlich found that the solution of sodium ammonium tartrate was optically active, but that of sodium ammonium paratartrate was optically inactive.^[118] The work of Biot and Mitscherlich was the starting point for research by the French chemist Louis Pasteur, a doctoral student of Gabriel Delafosse and a colleague of Auguste Laurent.^[119]

In 1848 Louis Pasteur gave the general relation between crystal morphology and rotatory polarization.^[114] Pasteur solved the mystery of polarized light acting differently with chemically identical crystals and solutions by discovering the phenomenon of molecular asymmetry, that is that molecules could be chiral and exist as a pair of enantiomers.^[120] Pasteur's method was to physically separate the crystals of a racemic mixture of sodium ammonium tartrate into right- and left-handed crystals, and then dissolve them to make two separate solutions which rotated polarized light in opposite directions.^[121] Pasteur's research was in part informed by considerations of molecular symmetry.^[122] Pasteur also proposed two other methods for the isolation of optically active enantiomers from racemic mixtures: by the use of optically active bases, e.g. strychnine, or by means of living organisms, e.g. bacteria or yeasts.^[123]

William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) introduced the word "chiral" in 1904 to describe handed figures.^[124] Objects that do not exhibit optical isomerism are said to be "achiral", that is their image in a plane mirror can be made congruent with itself.^[125] The term chirality has almost completely displaced the term "dissymmetry" which was used by Pasteur.^[126]

Liquid crystals

Friedrich Reinitzer

Otto Lehmann

Discoverers of liquid crystals (1888-9)

Cholesteryl benzoate

para-azoxyanisole

Liquid crystal molecules

In 1888 Friedrich Reinitzer examined the properties of various derivatives of cholesterol which now belong to the class of materials known as cholesteric liquid crystals. Previously, other researchers had observed distinct colour effects when cooling cholesterol derivatives just above the freezing point, but had not associated it with a new phenomenon.^[127] Reinitzer found that cholesteryl benzoate does not melt in the same way as most substances, but has two melting points. At 145.5 °C (293.9 °F) it melts into a cloudy liquid, and at 178.5 °C (353.3 °F) it melts again and the cloudy liquid becomes clear. The phenomenon is reversible. Reinitzer sought assistance to understand the phenomenon and, on 14 March 1888, he wrote to Otto Lehmann. They exchanged letters and samples.^[128] Lehmann examined the intermediate cloudy fluid, and reported seeing crystallites. Reinitzer's colleague Victor von Zepharovich^[129] also indicated that the intermediate "fluid" was crystalline. Reinitzer published his results, with credit to Lehmann and von Zepharovich, on 3 May 1888.^[130]

By that time, Reinitzer had discovered and described three important features of liquid crystals (the term was coined by Lehmann in a 1904 monograph):^[131] the existence of two melting points, the reflection of circularly polarized light, and the ability to rotate the direction of polarized light.

Reinitzer did not pursue the study of liquid crystals further, although in 1908 he had to defend his role in their discovery when Lehmann claimed the priority.^[132] The research was continued by Lehmann who started a systematic study, first of cholesteryl benzoate, and then of related compounds which exhibited the double-melting phenomenon. He was able to make observations in polarized light, and his microscope was equipped with a hot stage (sample holder equipped with a heater) enabling high temperature observations. The intermediate cloudy phase clearly sustained flow, but other features, particularly the signature under a microscope, convinced Lehmann that he was dealing with a solid. By the end of August 1889 he had published his results.^[133] Lehmann's paper prompted work by Ludwig Gattermann who in 1890 published a paper on the synthesis of azoxyphenol ethers, such as para-azoxyanisole, which exhibited the same double-melting behaviour.^[134]

Lehmann's interpretation of his results was controversial, and was not accepted by Gustav Heinrich Tammann, Georg Hermann Quincke, and Walther Nernst.^[135] In 1905 de:Rudolf Schenck's research addressed and largely resolved the objections of Tamman, Quincke and Nernst.^[136] Lehmann's work was continued and significantly expanded by the German chemist Daniel Vorländer who from the beginning of the 20th century had synthesized most of the liquid crystals known.^[137] In 1910–1922 research on liquid crystals, led by Georges Friedel, was carried on in France.^[138] In the period before X-rays liquid crystals were seen as merely a curiosity by scientists, and the field did not yield applications until the second half of the 20th century.^[139]

Liquid crystals are now known to have one- or two-dimensional periodicity, with rod or layer symmetry respectively.^[140]

Late 19th century

Jacobus van 't Hoff

Joseph Le Bel

Discoverers of the tetrahedral carbon atom (1874)

Enantiomers of tetrahedral carbon atom (van 't Hoff, 1874)^[141]

Sphere packing by William Barlow, 1897 representing the structure of rock-salt (NaCl)^[142]

From the 1830s Haüy’s molecular crystal structure theory started to be combined with the atomic theory of the chemists to produce a view of a crystal as the regular arrangement of atoms or molecules in space. In 1849 Auguste Bravais related the symmetry of the crystal, considered as one of 14 space lattices, to that of its constituting molecules and formalized the reticular interpretation of hemihedry given by Gabriel Delafosse.^[143] In 1852 Delafosse attempted to relate the structure of the molecule to the external shape of the crystal.^[144]

During the 1850s and 1860s a "quiet revolution" took place in structural chemistry according to Alan J. Rocke, a historian of chemistry.^[145] The main features of the revolution were the clarification of the concept of atomic weight (Stanislao Cannizzaro), the definition of the idea of valence (then known as atomicity), and new chemical structural ideas, such as the benzene structure of a ring of alternating double and single carbon bonds (August Kekulé).^[146] These developments in chemistry were largely independent of the mathematical and geometrical direction of crystallography in the period 1850–1895 which had little concern with the practicalities of atomic and molecular arrangement.^[147]

In 1874 Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff and Joseph Le Bel independently proposed the tetrahedral arrangement of the atoms bound to carbon in organic molecules.^[148][149] Van't Hoff's theory validated and explained Pasteur's results with tartrate crystals, and Johannes Wislicenus' work with isomeric lactic acids,^[150] and was fundamental to the further development of stereochemistry.^[151]

Until the use of X-rays there was no way to determine the actual crystal structure of even the simplest substances such as salt (NaCl).^[91] For example in the 1880s, William Barlow proposed several crystal structures based on close-packing of spheres^[152] some of which were validated later by X-ray crystallography; however the available data were too scarce in the 1880s to accept his models as conclusive. In the period between the discovery of X-rays (1895) and X-ray diffraction (1912) Barlow and William Jackson Pope developed the principles of packing, and showed how to deduce the structures of some simple compounds.^[153] In the 1930s Linus Pauling was impressed that Barlow had assigned many crystal structures of metals (copper, silver, and gold to cubic close packing, and magnesium, zinc, and cadmium to hexagonal close packing) and salts (sodium, potassium and caesium chlorides) which were subsequently proved to be correct by X-ray crystallography.^[154] William Johnson Sollas emphasised the importance of different atomic sizes in constructing simple crystals, and correctly concluded that the sodium and chlorine atoms in salt would be of different sizes.^[155]

In 1887 Johannes Wislicenus published a study of stereoisomerism in unsaturated compounds.^[156]

Groth made a systematic classification of minerals based on their chemical composition and crystal structure and published his results in his 5-volume Chemische Kristallographie in 1906–1919, which contained crystalline morphology and physical property data on nearly 10,000 substances.^[157]

In 1913 Walter Wahl summarised the known connections between chemical composition and crystalline form as isomorphism (Mitscherlich), morphotropism (Groth), and enantiomorphism (Pasteur and van 't Hoff).^[158]

In his preface to Andreas Fock's An introduction to chemical crystallography Pope summarised the state of chemical crystallography in 1895 as follows:

"Our knowledge of the physical and geometrical properties of crystals is now very complete, but their relations to chemical constitution and composition are as yet but little known."^[159]

After 1912 crystallography would develop dramatically with the widespread adoption of X-ray diffraction to determine crystal structures.^[160]

Research community

Paul Groth

Z. Kryst., 1, 1877

Founder of Zeitschrift für Krystallographie

Before the 20th century crystallography was not a well-established academic discipline. There were no academic positions specifically in crystallography. Workers in the field normally carried out their crystallographic research as an ancillary to other employment(s), or had independent means. The leading workers in the field of chemical crystallography were employed as follows:

• Professors
  • Mathematics or science: Arago,^[161] Berzelius,^[162] Biot,^[163] Curie,^[164] Frankenheim,^[165] Lehmann,^[166] Liebig,^[167] Mitscherlich,^[168] Ostwald,^[169] Pasteur,^[170] Reinitzer,^[171] Wöhler^[172]
  • Mineralogy: Delafosse,^[173] Groth,^[174] Haüy,^[175] Neumann,^[176]
• Other employment: Brewster (editor),^[177] Romé de l'Isle (cataloguer),^[178] Sohncke (meteorological service),^[179] Wollaston (physician)^[180]
• Independently wealthy: Barlow,^[181] Herschel,^[182] Huygens^[183]

In the nineteenth century there were informal schools of crystallography researchers in France (Arago, Biot, Curie, Delafosse, Haüy, Pasteur),^[184] Germany (Frankenheim, Groth, Lehmann, Liebig, Mitscherlich, Neumann, Reinitzer, Sohncke, Wöhler)^[185] and England (Barlow, Brewster, Herschel, Wollaston).^[186]

Until the founding of Zeitschrift für Krystallographie und Mineralogie by Paul Groth in 1877 there was no lead journal for the publication of crystallographic papers. The majority of crystallographic research was published in the journals of national scientific societies, or in mineralogical journals.^[187] The inauguration of Groth’s journal marked the emergence of crystallography as a mature science independent of geology.^[188]

See also

• History of atomic theory
• History of molecular theory
• Physical crystallography before X-rays
• Timeline of chemistry
• Timeline of crystallography