an English chemist. In 1848 he accepted the post of chemist to some copper smelting works at Coquimbo in Chile. Some account of his work there is contained in his papers in the ‘Journal of the Chemical Society’ for 1850, ‘On the Examination of some Slags from Copper-smelting Furnaces,’ and ‘On the Ashes of the Cactus-plant,’ from which large quantities of carbonate of soda were obtained. In 1851 Field described a natural alloy of silver and copper, which had the appearance of nearly pure silver, and also discovered that a certain ore which occurred in large quantities near Coquimbo was in reality pure lapis lazuli, the first found in South America.
