GLAUBER, JOHANN RUDOLF German chemist, was born at Karlstadt, Bavaria. He resided successively in Vienna, Salzburg, Frankfurt and Cologne before settling in Holland, where he made his living chiefly by the sale of secret chemical and medicinal preparations. Though his writings abound in universal solvents and other devices of the alchemists, he made some real contributions to chemical knowledge. Thus he clearly described the preparation of hydrochloric acid by the action of sulphuric acid on common salt, the manifold virtues of sodium sulphate—sal mirabile, Glauber's salt—formed in the process be ing one of the chief themes of his Miraculucm mundi; and he . noticed that nitric acid was formed when nitre was substituted for the common salt. Further he prepared a large number of substances, including the chlorides and other salts of lead, tin, iron, zinc, copper, antimony and arsenic, and he even noted some of the phenomena of double decomposition; he also made a num ber of useful observations on dyeing and gave a clear description of the preparation of tartar-emetic. One of his most notable works was his Teutschlands if'ohl f arth in which he urged that the natural resources of Germany should be developed for the profit of the country, giving various instances of how this might be done.
His treatises, about 3o in number, were collecIed and published at Frankfort in 1658-59, at Amsterdam in 1661, and, in an English translation by Packe, at London in 1689.