Eminent chemists of our time

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

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BENJA1N|[N |lARR<bw, PH.D.

Associated Physiolojtical Chemistry

D. VAN

EMINENT CHEMISTS
OF OUR TIME-

BY

BENJAMIN HARROW, PH.D.

Associate in Physiological Chemistry
Columbia University

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK
D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY

EIGHT WARREN STREET
IQ20

Copyright, 1920
D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY

Printed in the U. S. A.

PREFACE

We have several books dealing with the history of
chemistry; there are a number of biographies of pioneer
chemists ; but, so far as I am aware — and this includes
books in French and German as well as in English —
the chemists of our time have been ignored completely.
The Dickenses and Thackerays of chemistry have
received attention — not any too much, to be sure; but
the moderns, the Anatole Frances and Wells, have
received none.

To fill such a want is the object of this work. How
much these men and woman who are here treated are
of our time may be gauged from the following: of the
eleven whose lives and work are discussed, one died in
1897 (through suicide, be it added); three, in 1907;
one, in 1911; one, in 1916; one, in 1919; and four are
still alive.

The question may very naturally be asked, why were
just these eleven selected? To this I would answer,
that, with the historical perspective in mind, I wished
to review the achievements of those men whose work
is indissolubly bound up with the progress of chemistry
during the last generation or so. I wished, then, to
write a history of chemistry of our times by centering it
around some of its leading figures.

This book aims to fill the wants of three classes of men :
i. The chemist who wishes an account of the labors of

434858

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

some of the most iUustrious men in his profession.

2. The scientist, other than the chemist, who desires

information in a closely related field. What
physicist can ignore the work of Mme. Curie?
What biologist or medical man is not indebted to
van't Hoff, Arrhenius and Fischer? And how has
industry profited by the labors of Moissan and
Perkin! These instances could be multiplied.

3. The layman who wants a non-technical account of

some of the more remarkable achievements in a
science which is entering more and more into our
daily lives.

This work emphasizes the personal side; it is a
" human document " ; but there are ample references
to, and discussions of noteworthy achievements. The
book is so written that any layman, without any previous
knowledge of chemistry, can get an intelligent idea of
the man and his work.

Without generous help from many quarters a work of
this kind would be quite impossible. I wish here to
express my special indebtedness to the following : Dr. H.
Arctowski, N. Y. Public Library; Prof. Svante Arrhenius,
Nobel Institute, Stockholm, Sweden; Prof. W. D. Ban-
croft, Cornell Univ. ; Prof. Ernst Cohen, Univ. of Utrecht,
Holland; Madame M. Curie, Curie Laboratory, Paris,
France ; Prof. Jacques Loeb, Rockefeller Institute, N. Y. ;
Prof. W. H. Perkin, Oxford Univ., England; Prof. Ira
Remsen, Johns Hopkins Univ.; and Prof. T. W. Rich-
ards, Harvard Univ. I am particularly indebted to my
teachers and friends, Prof. W. J. Gies, Columbia Univ.,

vi

PREFACE

and the late Prof. R. Meldola, Finsbury College, London,
England; to my colleagues, Dr. E. G. Miller, Jr.,
Columbia Univ., and Mr. J. E. Whitsit, De Witt Clinton
High School, N. Y. ; and to my wife.

I wish also to thank the editors of Science, the Journal
of the Franklin Institute and Scientific Monthly for
permission to reprint some of the articles.1

BENJAMIN HARROW

New York, 1920.

1 The work as originally written consisted of two parts: the
" lives " (which constitutes the present volume) and the " work."
The latter was an exhaustive review of the scientific work of the
chemists under discussion. Complete bibliographies were ap-
pended to each article. However, as my intention was to write a
popular volume, and as the second portion dealing with the
" work " would have unduly enlarged the book, I decided to post-
pone publishing this part for the present.

vii

CONTENTS

Page

Introduction xi

Perkin and Coal-Tar Dyes i

Mendeleeff and the Periodic Law 19

Ramsay and the Gases of the Atmosphere 41

Richards and Atomic Weights 59

van't Hoff and Physical Chemistry 79

Arrhenius and the Theory of Electrolytic Disso-
ciation in

Moissan and the Electric Furnace 135

Madame Curie and Radium 155

Victor Meyer and the Rise of Organic Chemistry . 177

Remsen and the Rise of Chemistry in America. . . . 197

Fischer and the Chemistry of Foods 217

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Page

Several eminent chemists Frontispiece

W. H. Perkin opposite i

Perkin's apparatus for determining optical activity

opposite 12

D. Mendeleeff opposite 19

Periodic table 27

William Ramsay opposite 41

Ramsay's apparatus for the isolation of argon

opposite 48

T. W. Richards opposite 59

Relation of the atomic weights of the elements to

other properties opposite 71

A room in the Wolcott Gibbs Laboratory, Harvard

opposite 73

J. H. Van't Hoff opposite 79

Van't Hoff and Ostwald opposite 92

Svante Arrhenius opposite in

Henri Moissan opposite 135

Moissan's apparatus for preparing Fluorine and his

electric Furnace opposite 146

Madame M. Curie opposite 155

P. Curie opposite 169

Victor Meyer opposite 177

V. Meyer's apparatus for determining vapor density

opposite 183

Ira Remsen opposite 197

Emil Fischer opposite 217

Fischer's apparatus used in protein work . . opposite 230

xi

INTRODUCTION

iDERN chemistry, little more than a century
old, shows several outstanding landmarks in
its evolutionary course. These may be
classified into (i) The Foundation Period;
(2) The Classification Period; (3) The Physico-Chemical
Period; and (4) The Period of Radio-Activity.

1. The Foundation Period. Many regard Lavoisier
(1743-94) as the father of modern chemistry. He was
unquestionably one of its chief founders, if only because
of the importance he attached to the use of the balance.
With its help he gave us our modern idea of combustion,
and established the law of the conservation of mass,
which tells us that in all chemical reactions the total
weight of the products formed is always equal to the
weight of the reacting substances. Matter, then, may
undergo change, but it cannot be created, and it cannot
be destroyed.

2. The Classification Period. Boyle (1627-91) was
the first to distinguish clearly between elements and
compounds — substances which cannot, and substances
which can be decomposed. The atomic theory of
Dalton (1766-1844), with its conception of the atom as
the unit in all chemical changes, must rank in importance
with Lavoisier's pioneer work in quantitative chemistry.
The atom and the molecule were further studied by
Avogadro (1776-1856) and Cannizzaro (1826-1910),
with results which led to the system of chemical nomen-
clature in common use today. Studies in the structure
of compounds, and the classification of the elements

ziii

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

according to Mendeleefif's periodic system, were the
logical consequences of the earlier work on the atom.

In more recent times Ramsay, Richards and Moseley
have added much to our knowledge of the periodic
system, which, in many ways, must be regarded as the
starting point of some of the more recent discoveries and
hypotheses in chemistry.

Side by side with these fundamental conceptions,
chemists, fired by the work of Liebig (1803-73) and
Wohler (1800-82), were giving much attention to the
chemistry of the carbon compounds which, in number,
seemed infinite. Brilliant exponents of organic chem-
istry— which is the common name given to the chemistry
of the carbon compounds — were Perkin and Victor
Meyer.

3. The Physico-Chemical Period. Organic chemistry
grew to greater and greater proportions. Even as late
as the eighties of the past century the " organicists "
were not merely in the ascendency, but had all but well-
nigh supplanted the " inorganicists," i.e., the chemists
who specialized in all compounds except those of carbon.
Then came a remarkable change. This was partly due
to Moissan's brilliant work in inorganic chemistry,
which made clear to the scientific public that this phase
of chemistry still had rich fields that awaited cultivation;
but, to a greater degree, to van't Hoff, Arrhenius and
Ostwald, who founded a new and tremendously im-
portant branch of the science — physical chemistry.

Perhaps it would be more correct to say that these
three did not so much create a new branch of the science,
as that they interpreted chemistry in a more rational,
more mathematical, and therefore more rigorous fashion;
the catalogue of facts gave place to a discussion of far-
reaching principles.

xiv

INTRODUCTION

Some, fired by Moissan's genius, re-entered the field
of inorganic chemistry; many of the younger generation
turned to the physico-chemists ; some, however, fas-
cinated by such brilliant work as Fischer's application
of synthetic chemistry to biology and medicine, extended
their researches into the domain of physiological chem-
istry.

4. The Period of Radio- Activity. The study by
physicists of the discharge of electricity through gases
ultimately led to the discovery of radium by Madame
Curie. To-day radio-activity is a distinct science ; yet
Mme. Curie began her researches as late as 1898 !

Radioactivity has already shed a flood of light on the
structure of the atom. It has shown conclusively that
the atom is far from being the smallest possible particle,
though it has, if anything, confirmed Dalton's original
view that chemical reactions take place between atoms.

Of transcendent importance is the conclusion these
studies lead to: that whereas chemistry deals with
reactions between atoms, radioactivity deals with reac-
tions within the atom. The two types of activity are
quite distinct from one another; to such an extent, in
fact, that whereas chemical reactions can be controlled,
radioactivity has thus far proved entirely beyond the
control of man, for no human device seems to increase
or decrease such activity.

Addendum

Chemistry in America. The history of chemistry in
America is discussed in the article on Remsen. Here
it needs but to be pointed out that Remsen bears the
same relation to the vast army of brilliant American
chemists of to-day that Johns Hopkins University bears
to higher education in the United States.

XV

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

The various items discussed in this introduction may

now be tabulated in chronological order:

1661. Boyle: elements.

1777. Lavoisier: combustion and conservation of

1808. Dalton : atomic theory.

1811. Avogadro: molecules.

1828. Wb'hler: synthesis of urea — the first case of the
artificial production of a typical animal product.

1856. Perkin: discovery of mauve, the first dye ob-
tained from coal-tar.

1858. Cannizzaro: atom and molecule.

1865. Kekule suggests ring formula for benzene.

1869. Mendeleeff : periodic system of the elements.

1874. van't Hoff and Le Bel: structural chemistry
(theory of the asymmetric carbon atom).

1876. Remsen is appointed professor of chemistry at
Johns Hopkins University.

1884. Victor Meyer discovers thiophene, opening up

an immense chapter in organic chemistry.

1885. Emil Fischer begins work on the synthesis of

sugars.

1886. Moissan: isolation of fluorine.

1887. van't Hoff: theory of solution.

1887. Arrhenius: theory of electrolytic dissociation.

1894. Ramsay and Raleigh discover argon.

1898. Mme. Curie: radium.

1913. Moseley: atomic numbers (see the article on

Richards).

1914. Richards : radioactive lead.

xvi

WILLIAM HENRY PERKIN

every school child knows to-day, the
illuminating gas we use in our homes is
largely obtained from the dry distillation of

coal; but many men and women even to-day

are not aware that, in addition to illuminating gas, other
products of far-reaching commercial importance are also
obtained from this same coal.

Among these, coal-tar stands out pre-eminently.
Not so many years ago it was a waste and a nuisance;
to-day it rivals the coal-gas in utility.

From this dirty black tar, by a series of distillations,
we get benzene and toluene and naphthalene and anthra-
cene— to mention but four important substances — which
are the starting point for countless products of the dye
and synthetic drug variety.

Out of benzene, for example, we can get aniline, and
from the latter, Perkin, in 1856, ob tamed the first arti-
ficial dyestuff ever produced.

Born hi England, the dye industry was reared and
developed in Germany; and Germany owes much of its
greatness, and very much of its downfall to it. For
the dye industry proved but a nucleus for many other
related industries. Thus dyes gave rise to the manu-
facture of sulphuric and nitric acids and caustic soda;
these in turn to artificial fertilizers, explosives and
chlorine; and the latter to poison gas with all its con-
comitants. The medicine in small doses and the poison
in large; chlorine as an antiseptic and chlorine as a
destroyer — give them but the wrong twist, and man's
ingenuity becomes positively harmful.

* ^ EMINENT- CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

Perkin was born in London in 1838. He was the
youngest son of George Fowler Perkin, a builder and
contractor, who had apparently decided his son's future
before the latter had discarded his swaddling clothes.
Perkin, Jr., was to be an architect.

But Perkin, Jr., had not yet decided for himself.
Perhaps it was a street car conductor one day, a prime
minister the next, and an engine driver the third. And
then again, watching his father's carpenters at work, he
wished to become a mechanic of some kind; and plans
for buildings fired him with the ambition of becoming a
painter.

In any case, in his thirteenth year he had an oppor-
tunity of watching some experiments on crystallization.
It goes without saying that he forwith decided to be a
chemist.

Were it not that about this time Perkin entered the
City of London School, and there came in contact with
one of the science masters, Mr. Thomas Hall, this latest
decision might have been as fleeting as his previous
ones.

The City of London School, like all important educa-
tional institutions of the day, considered science as an
imposter in the curriculum, so that whilst Latin received
a considerable slice of the day's attention, poor little
chemistry could be squeezed hi only in the interval set
aside for lunch.

A few boys, and among them Perkin, were sufficiently
interested to forego many of their lunches and watch
"Tommy Hall" perform experiments.

Hall's infectious personality made young Perkin all-
enthusiastic. He was going to be a chemist, and he
was going to the Royal College of Science, of which, and
of its renowned chemical professor, Hall had told him
much.

WILLIAM HENRY PERKIN

Hall's earnest pleading finally overcame the father's
opposition, and in his fifteenth year Perkin entered the
College. " Mr. W. Crookes,"1 the assistant, was the
one immediately hi charge.

The head professor was Hofmann, an imported
product. So suggestive and illustrative were the great
chemist's lectures that, in the second semester, Perkin
begged and obtained permission to hear them once
again.

In the laboratory Perkin was put through the routine
in qualitative and quantitative chemistry, Bunsen's gas
analysis methods serving as an appendix. This was
followed by a research problem on anthracene, carried
out under Hofmann's direction, which yielded negative
results, but which paved the way for successful work
later. His second problem on naphthylamine proved
somewhat more successful, and was subsequently pub-
lished hi the Chemical Journal — the first of more than
eighty papers to appear from his pen.

When but seventeen Perkin already had shown his
mettle to such an extent that Hofmann appointed him to
an assistantship. This otherwise flattering appoint-
ment had, however, the handicap that it left Perkin no
time for research. To overcome this the enthusiastic
boy fixed up a laboratory in his own home, and there,
in the evenings, and in vacation tune, the lad tried
explorations into unknown regions.

The celebrated experiment which was to give the
17-year-old lad immortality for all time was carried out
in the little home laboratory hi the Easter vacation of
1856. It arose from some comments by Hofmann on
the desirability and the possibility of preparing the
alkaloid, quinine, artificially.

1 The late Sir W. Crookes.

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

Starting first with toluidine, and then, when toluidine
gave unsatisfactory results, with aniline — both being
products of coal tar — Perkin treated a salt of the latter
with bichromate of potash and obtained a dirty black
precipitate.

Dirty, slimy precipitates had been obtained before
and had, as a rule, been discarded as objectionable by-
products. Perkin's first instinct to throw the "rub-
bish" away was overcome by a second, which urged
him to make a more careful examination. And this
soon resulted in the isolation of the first dye ever pro-
duced from coal tar — the now well-known aniline purple
or mauve !

A sample of the dye was sent to Messrs. Pullar, of
Perth, with the request that it be tried on silk. " If
your discovery does not make the goods too expensive,
it is decidedly one of the most valuable that has come
out for a long time ..." was the answer. Trials on
cotton were not so successful, mainly because suitable
mordants were not known. This second result some-
what dampened the enthusiasm of our young friend.

Nevertheless, Perkin decided to patent the process,
and, if possible, to improve the product, as well as to
find unproved means of application.

Full of hope and courage, the young lad had decided
to stake his future on the success or failure of this
enterprise. He was going to leave the Royal College
of Science, and with the financial backing of his father —
who seems to have had a sublime faith in his son's
ability — he was going to build a factory where the dye
could be produced in quantity.

Hofmann was shown the dye and was told of the
resolution. The well-meaning professor, who seemed
to have had more than a passing fondness for the lad,
tried all he could to persuade Perkin against any such

4

WILLIAM HENRY PERKIN

undertaking. And let it be added that in that day, to
any man with any practical common sense, Perkin's
venture seemed doomed from the start.

A site for the factory was obtained at Greenf ord Green,
near Harrow, and the building commenced hi June, 1857.

" At this time," wrote Perkin years later, " neither
I nor my friends had seen the inside of a chemical
works, and whatever knowledge I had was obtained
from books. This, however, was not so serious a draw-
back as at first it might appear to be; as the kind of
apparatus required and the character of the operations
to be performed were so entirely different from any in
use that there was but little to copy from."

The practical difficulties Perkin had to overcome were
such that, hi comparison, the actual discovery of the
dye seems a small affair. Since most of the apparatus
that was required could not be obtained, it had first to
be devised, then tested, and finally applied.

Nor was this all. Raw materials necessary for the
manufacture of the dye were as scarce as some rare
elements are to-day. Aniline itself was little more than
a curiosity, and one of the first problems was to devise
methods of manufacturing it from benzene.

The country was searched high and low for benzene.
Finally Messrs. Miller and Co., of Glasgow, were found
to be able to supply Perkin with some quantity, but the
price was $1.25 a gallon, and the quality so poor that it
had to be redistilled.

Now the first step in the conversion of benzene to
aniline was to form nitrobenzene, and this required
nitric and sulphuric acids in addition to benzene. Here
again the market did not offer a nitric acid strong enough
for the purpose. This had first to be manufactured from
Chili saltpeter and oil of vitriol (sulphuric acid), and
special apparatus had to be devised.

5

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

Bechamp's discovery three years earlier, that nitro-
benzene could be converted into aniline by the action of
finely divided iron and acetic acid was now developed
for industrial use, and here again special apparatus had
to be devised.

To-day the most fundamental operations in every dye
factory are nitration — the conversion, say, of benzene to
nitrobenzene — and reduction — the conversion of nitro-
benzene to aniline. The mode of procedure, the tech-
nique, the apparatus — all are based on the work of this
eighteen-year-old lad. Only those who have attempted
to repeat on an industrial scale what has been success-
fully carried out in the laboratory on a small scale, will
appreciate the difficulties to be overcome, and the extra-
ordinary ability that Perkin must have possessed to
have overcome them. Think of a Baeyer who synthe-
sized indigo hi his university laboratory, and then think
of the twenty years of continuous labor that was re-
quired before the Badische Anilin Fabrik, with its
hundreds of expert chemists and mechanics, was in a
position to produce indigo in quantity. And it would
have taken them and others much longer but for the
pioneer work of young Perkin.

Some have described Perkin's discovery as accidental.
Perhaps it was. But consider the way it was perfected
and made available; consider with what extraordinary
ability every related topic was handled; consider how
every move was a new move, with no previous experience
to guide him; and who but one endowed with the quality
of genius could have overcome all this? Hertz dis-
covered the key to wireless telegraphy, but Marconi
brought it within reach of all of us; Baeyer first synthe-
sized indigo, but the combined labors of chemists in
the largest chemical factory in the world were necessary
before artificial indigo began to compete with the

6

WILLIAM HENRY PERKIN

natural product; Perkin both isolated the first arti-
ficial dyestuff and made it useful to man.

In less than six months aniline purple — " Tyrian
purple " it was at first called — was being used for silk
dyeing in a Mr. Keith's dye-house. The demand for
it became so great that many other concerns in England,
and particularly hi France, began its manufacture.
In France it was renamed " mauve," and " mauve "
it has remained to this day.

Perkin's improvements continued uninterruptedly,
and his financial success grew beyond all expectations.
He found that the uneven color often obtained in dyeing
on silk could be entirely remedied by dyeing in a soap
bath. The use of tannin as one of the mordants made
it applicable to cotton, and shades of various kinds and
depths of any degree could be attained without any
difficulty. A process for its use in calico printing was
also worked out successfully.

When, three years later, Verguin discovered the im-
portant magenta — or, as it is sometimes called, fuchsine
— and later still Hofmann, his rosaniline, various details
in the manufacture of mauve and its application to silk,
cotton and calico printing, were appropriated bodily.

Young Perkin had given tremendous impetus to re-
search hi pure and applied chemistry. In the prepara-
tion of dyes, substances which had, until then, been
curiosities, had now become necessities, and methods
for their preparation had to be devised. This led to
incalculable research in organic chemistry. In fact, it
is hardly too much to say that the basis for most of the
development in organic chemistry since 1856 lies in
Perkin's discovery of mauve.

Industry has not been the only benefactor. It will be
remembered that using the dye, methylene blue, as a
staining agent, Koch discovered the bacilli of tubercu-

7

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

losis and cholera. And coal-tar dyes are to-day used
in every histological and bacteriological laboratory.

So rapid had been the progress of the industry that in
1861, Perkin who, though only 23, was already recog-
nized as the leading English authority, was asked by the
Chemical Society to lecture on coloring matters derived
from coal-tar, and on this occasion the great Michael
Faraday, who was present, warmly congratulated Perkin
upon his fine lecture.

Such dimensions has the coal-tar industry assumed
since then that in 1913, at one single factory, the Baeyer
works, in Elberfeld, Germany, there were employed
8,000 workman and 330 university trained chemists.

Says Punch:

There's hardly a thing that a man can name

Of use or beauty in life's small game

But you can extract in alembic or jar

From the " physical basis " of black coal-tar —

Oil and ointment, and wax and wine,

And the lovely colors called aniline ;

You can make anything from a salve to a star,

H you only know how, from black coal-tar.

In his little laboratory at the factory the various
attempts made in improving the methods of manu-
facture were not the only time-consuming factors. The
chemical constitution of mauve and related dyes, as
well as purely organic questions not in any way related
to dyes, also engaged Perkin's attention, and he began
to contribute what was to prove an uninterrupted stream
of papers to the Transactions of the Chemical Society
In 1866 he was elected to a Fellowship in the Royal
Society.

The year 1868 is memorable in the annals of chemistry
as dating the first artificial production of alizarin, the
important coloring matter which until then had been

8

WILLIAM HENRY PERKIN

obtained exclusively from the madder root. This great
triumph was due to the labors of Graebe and Lieber-
mann. But the triumph for the time being was purely a
scientific one. The process as worked out by these two
chemists was far too costly to compete with the method
used in extracting the dye from the madder root.

The starting point to the artificial production of alizarin
was anthracene, another important coal-tar product.
It so happened that the first piece of research Perkin had
ever been connected with was related to anthracene, a
topic taken up on the recommendation of his teacher,
Hofmann. Naturally, Graebe and Liebermann's syn-
thesis aroused his interest. He wished to find some
method of producing it at less cost.

In less than a year Perkin had solved the problem.
A modification of the method dispensed with the use of
bromine, which was very costly. A patent was taken
out in June, 1869, at about the same tune that Perkin's
process had been discovered quite independently by
Graebe, Liebermann and Caro.

Just as in the case of mauve, the supply of raw ma-
terials and the mastery of technical details, involved
much labor and ingenuity.

To begin with, a constant and generous supply of
anthracene was necessary. But where was this to be
had? The tar distillers had had no use for it, and had
not troubled to separate it in the distillation of tar.
Many, indeed, there were among them who did not even
know of its existence.

With the help of his brother, the various distillers in
the country were visited and the method of isolating the
anthracene from the tar distillate was shown them.
The promise that all anthracene thus obtained would be
bought and generously paid for, assured the Perkins of a
plentiful supply.

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

The purification of the anthracene so obtained, the
details of the entire process of manufacturing alizarin,
and the types of apparatus to be employed, were all
exhaustively investigated. By the end of 1869 one ton
of the coloring matter in the form of a paste had been
made. This was increased to 40 tons in 1870, and to
220 tons in 1871. Until 1873, when the Germans also
began manufacturing it, the Greenwood Green works
were the sole suppliers.

In 1874 Perkin sold his factory, and from henceforth
devoted himself exclusively to pure research.

Perkin exemplifies the type, more common than is
often supposed, though one entirely beyond the compre-
hension of the average business man, who loves the
quiet pursuit of research beyond aught else. Perkin
exploited his discovery solely with the view of pro-
viding himself with an income, modest in the extreme,
but sufficient for his extremely simple wants. To
explore unknown fields at leisure and to be freed from
all money matters whilst doing so, were his aims.

When Perkin left the Royal College of Science at 17 he
had this in mind. Financial insecurity may spur you
on, but to give the very best that is in you requires
freedom from such burdens.

What led him to give up the factory and to devote him-
self exclusively to pure science was sheer love of the
subject. It is the type of love which, when associated
with genius, has led to the world's greatest literary and
artistic productions.

After 1874 Perkin moved to a new house in Sudbury,
and continued to use the old one as the laboratory.

His research work from now on touched but lightly
upon the dye situation. Until 1881 it centered much
around the action of acetic anhydride on a group of
organic compounds known as aldehydes. The first im-

IO

WILLIAM HENRY PERKIN

portant result that was here achieved was the synthesis
of coumarin, an odorous substance found in the tonka
bean. This was the first case of the production of a
vegetable perfume from a coal-tar product.

These researches culminated in the now classical
PerkirCs Synthesis of unsaturated fatty acids — a group
reaction which is studied by every student in chemistry
to-day.

In 1879 Perkin was the recipient of the Royal Medal of
the Royal Society, the other awards of the year going to
Clausius, for his investigation of the Mechanical Theory
of Heat, and Lecoq de Boisboudron, for the discovery
of the element gallium. The president addressed Perkin
as follows:

" Mr. William Perkin has been, for more than twenty
years, one of the most industrious and successful investi-
gators of Organic Chemistry.

" Mr. Perkin is the originator of one of the most im-
portant branches of chemical industry, that of the manu-
facture of dyes from coal-tar derivatives.

" Forty-three years ago the production of a violet-
blue color by the addition of chloride of lime to oil
obtained from coal-tar was first noticed, and this having
afterwards been ascertained to be due to the existence
of the organic base known as aniline, the production of
the coloration was for many years used as a very deli-
cate test for that substance.

" The violet color in question, which was soon after-
wards also produced by other oxidizing agents, appeared,
however, to be quite fugitive, and the possibility of fixing
and obtaining in a state of purity the aniline product
which gave rise to it, appears not to have occurred to
chemists until Mr. Perkin successfully grappled with the
subject in 1856, and produced the beautiful coloring
matter known as aniline violet, or mauve, the production

ii

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

of which, on a large scale, by Mr. Perkin, laid the founda-
tion of the coal-tar color industry.

" His more recent researches on anthracene deriva-
tives, especially on artificial alizarine, the coloring
matter identical with that obtained from madder, rank
among the most important work, and some of them
have greatly contributed to the successful manufacture
of alizarine in this country.

"Among the very numerous researches of purely
scientific interest which Mr. Perkin has published, a
series on the hydrides of salicyl and their derivatives,
may be specially referred to; but among the most
prominent of his admirable investigations are those
resulting in the synthesis of coumarin, the odiferous
principle of the tonquin bean and the sweet-scented
woodstuff, and its homologues.

" The artificial production of glycocoll and of tartaric
acid by Mr. Perkin conjointly with Mr. Duppa afford
other admirable examples of synthetical research. . . .

" It is seldom that an investigator of organic chemistry
has extended his researches over so wide a range as is
the case with Mr. Perkin, and his work has always com-
manded the admiration of chemists for its accuracy and
completeness, and for the originality of its conception."

In 1881 Perkin turned his attention in an entirely new
direction, that of the relationship between the physical
properties and the chemical constitution of substances.
Gladstone, Briihl, and others were already busy con-
necting such physical manifestations as refraction and
dispersion with chemical constitution. Perkin now
introduced a third physical property, first discovered by
Faraday: the power substances possess of rotating the
plane of polarisation when placed in a magnetic field.

With this general topic Perkin was engaged to the
year of his death. His work has thrown a flood of light

12

WILLIAM HENRY PERKIN

upon the constitution of almost every type of organic
compound, some, such as acetoacetic ester and benzene,
being of extraordinary fascination to every chemist.

There are chemists — and H. E. Armstrong is among
them — who regard this phase of Perkin's life work as
his crowning achievement. If it has not received such
general recognition as his earlier work, that is to be
largely ascribed to a lack of knowledge of physics which
prevailed among chemists until quite recently. How-
ever, even as far back as 1889 Perkin was presented with
the Davy Medal of the Royal Society as a reward for his
magnetic studies.

The year 1906 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the
founding of the coal-tar industry, and the entire sci-
entific world stirred itself to do honor to the founder.
A meeting was held on July 26 of that year at the Royal
Institution in London, over which Prof. R. Meldola, the
president of the Chemical Society, presided, and those
in attendance included some of the most distinguished
representatives of science in the world.

The first part of the meeting consisted in the presen-
tation of his portrait (painted by A. S. Cope, A.R.A.) to
the guest of the evening. A bust of Perkin (executed by
Mr. Pomeroy, A.R.A.) for the library of the Chemical
Society, was next shown. In addition the chairman
stated that a fund of several thousand pounds had been
collected for the endowment of chemical research in
the name of " Sir William Henry Perkin " (he had
been knighted in the meantime).

Prof. Emil Fischer, president of the German Chemical
Society, presented to Perkin the Hofmann Medal, which
was accompanied with this address: Die Deutsche
Chemische Gesellschaft hat Herrn Dr. W. H. Perkin
in London filr ausgezeichnete Leistungen auf dem
Gebiete der Organischen Chemie, im besonderen fiir

13

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

die Begriindung der Teerfarben-Industrie, den Hof-
mann-Preis verliehen. Berlin, im Juli, 1906. Der
President: E.Fischer. DieSchriftfuhrer: C.Schotten,
W. Will.

Prof. A. Haller, representing France, presented Perkin
with the Lavoisier Medal, with this address: La Societe
Chimique de Pans, a V occasion du Jubilee destinee a
celebrer la cinquantieme anniversaire de la decouverte
de la premiere matiere color ante derivee de la houille,
et comme temoignage de haute estime pour ses travaux,
est heureuse d'offrir au Dr. William Henri Perkin,
Inventeur de la Mauveine (1865), sa Medaille de
Lavoisier a Veffigie de celui qui fut Vun des premiers
et des plus illustres applicateurs des Sciences Chimiques
a Vindustrie et a la prosperite publiques. Le Secre-
taire-General: A. Behal. Le President de la Societe
Chimique de Paris: Armand Gautier. Juillet,
1906.

Addresses were also delivered by Dr. Baekeland,
representing the chemists of America; Prof. Paul
Friedlander, on behalf of the scientific and technical
chemists of Austria; Prof. P. van Romburgh, Holland;
Prof. H. Rupe, Switzerland; Lord Kelvin, representing
the Royal Society; and Prof. Meldola, on behalf of the
English Chemical Society.

A passage from the Chemical Society's report is worth
quoting: "... However highly your technical achieve-
ments be rated, those who have been intimately asso-
ciated with you must feel that the example which you
have set by your rectitude as well as by your modesty
and sincerity of purpose is of chiefest value. That you
should have been able, as a very young man, to over-
come the extraordinary difficulties incident to the estab-
lishment of an entirely novel industry 50 years ago is a
clear proof that you were possessed in an unusual degree

14

WILLIAM HENRY PERKIN

of courage, independence of character, judgment, and
resourcefulness; but even more striking is your return
into the fold of scientific workers and the ardor with
which you have devoted yourself to the prosecution of
abstract physico-chemical inquiries of exceptional diffi-
culty. In the account of your renowned master, Hof-
mann, you have stated that one of your great fears on
entering into technical work was that it might prevent
your continuing research work; that you should have felt
such regret at such a period is sufficiently remarkable,
and it must be a source of enduring satisfaction to you
to know that your later scientific work deserves, in the
opinion of many, to rank certainly no less than your
earlier."

How much Perkin was appreciated in Germany, where
the coal-tar industry had developed into such gigantic
proportions, is shown by the delegation that came from
that country. There were Prof. Bernthsen, Dr. H.
Caro and Dr. Ehrhardt, of the Badische Anilin und
Soda-Fabrik; Dr. Aug. Clemm, Herr R. Bablich, and
Dr. E. Ullrich, Farbwerke, Meister, Lucius, und Briin-
ing; Dr. Klingeman, Casella and Co., Prof. Carl Duis-

, berg and Dr. Nieme, Farbenfabriken, Elberfeld, and
Prof. Liebermann — in short, the cream of Germany's
industrial chemical fraternity.
And there were messages from Prof. Beilstein (Petro-

i grad), Prof. Ciamician (Bologna), Prof. Canizzaro

; (Rome), Prof. Jorgensen (Copenhagen), Prof. Takayama
(Tokyo), Prof. Adolf Baeyer (Munich), Prof. J. W.
Briihl (Heidelberg), Prof. G. Lunge (Zurich), and
Prof. Hugo Schiff (Florence) — an international band of

i illustrious scholars.

In the autumn following the jubilee celebrations in
London, Sir William Perkin accepted an invitation from
the American Committee to visit its shores. Various

15

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

gatherings were held in his honor in New York, Boston,
Washington, etc.

In New York a dinner was tendered him at Del-
monico's, with the veteran Prof. Chandler, of Columbia,
in the chair. Dr. W. H. Nichols presented him with the
first impress of the Perkin Medal, since awarded annu-
ally to the American chemist who has most distinguished
himself by his services to applied chemistry; and Dr.
W. F. Hillebrand, president of the American Chemical
Society, presented the diploma of honorary membership
of the society to the guest of the evening. Other
speakers included President Ira Remsen of Johns
Hopkins, Prof. Nernst of Berlin, and Dr. W. H. Wiley,
chief chemist of the Dept. of Agriculture, Washington.

Perkin died on July 14, 1907.

Aside from his scientific achievements, Perkin's life
was extremely uneventful. To him his science was his
life, and he seems to have had no avocation. We find
no romantic dash, no such many-sidedness, as char-
acterised his great countryman, Ramsay, for example.
With modesty carried to the extreme, only the privileged
few knew anything of the man, and even Prof. Meldola,
an ultimate friend of many years* standing, could give
but few personal touches of the man in his otherwise
excellent obituary address, delivered to the members of
the Chemical Society. "... I thank God, to whom I
owe everything, for all His goodness to me, and ascribe
to Him all the praise and honor." This was Perkin's
review of his life hi 1906. A blameless Christian, a
perfect gentleman, a fine type of the old conservative,
he lived unobtrusively, worked quietly and intensively,
worshipped God, and respected his neighbor. To us,
living in days of turmoil and upheaval, such a personage
already belongs to an age long past.

16

WILLIAM HENRY PERKIN

Perkin was twice married. His first wife was a
daughter of the late Mr. John Lisset. Some years after
her death he married a daughter of Mr. Herman Molwo.
Mrs. Perkin, three sons, and four daughters, survive
him.

His sons are all noted chemists. One of them, Arthur
George, is a technical expert, and another, William
Henry, is professor of chemistry at Oxford. This Ox-
ford professor is without doubt the foremost organic
chemist in England to-day. His work on polymethyl-
enes, alkaloids, camphor, terpenes, etc., is of the highest
order.

Like that other grand Englishman, Darwin, Perkin,
the genius, begot Perkins of genius. Not always are the
Gods so kind to the children of geniuses.

To great ends and projects had thy life been given;
Right well and nobly has the goal been won;
For this, O Great Discoverer, thou hast striven;
Take, then, our thanks, for all that thou hast done.

(Nora Hastings, — dedicated to Perkin.)

References

Much of the biographical material has been supplied
by Perkin himself in his Hofmann Memorial Lec-
ture (i). Prof. Meldola's appreciative article (2) is
largely based on this, though valuable additional ma-
terial, particularly that relating to the technical develop-
ment of Perkin's dye, is to be found here. The Jubilee
volume (3) contains interesting items. Perkin's sci-
entific papers were published in the Journal of the Chem-
ical Society (London).

i. W. H. Perkin: The Origin of the Coal-Tar Industry, and the
Contributions of Hofmann and his Pupils. Journal of the
Chemical Society (London), 69, 556 (1886).

3 17

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

2. Raphael Meldola: Perkin Obituary Notice. Journal of the

Chemical Society (London), 9J, 2214 (1908).

3. R. Meldola, A. G. Green, and J. C. Cain: Jubilee of the Dis-

covery of Mauve and of the Foundation of the Coal-Tar
Color Industry by Sir W. H. Perkin. (Printed by G. E.
Wright, at the Times Office, London, and published by the
Perkin Memorial Committee, 1906.)

18

DMITRI IVANOWITCH MENDELEEFF

TSSIA, the land of mystery to her western
neighbors, occasionally startles us by the
intellectual giants she produces. The world
has long sung praises of Tolstoy and Tschai-
kowsky, and scientists have shown no less admiration
for thephysiologist, Pavloff , and the chemist, Mendeleeff.

MendeleefFs Periodic Law has shown how the ele-
ments, the chemist's building-stones, can be grouped to
exhibit striking family resemblances. The chaos of the
sixties gave place to a law of nature hi the seventies,
and the law paved the way for the more remarkable
discoveries of the present era.

Dmitri Ivanowitch Mendeleeff was born in Tobolsk,
Siberia, on February 7, 1834. He was the youngest of
eleven, fourteen or seventeen children — authorities
seem to differ. On the paternal side Mendeleeff came
from priestly stock, his grandfather, Pawal Maksim-
owitch Sokoloff, occupying a modest position in the
Greek Church ruled by the Hqjy Synod. Since celibacy
is not obligatory for the lower clergy of this church,
Pawal took advantage of such permission and married.
Of his four sons, Wassili, Iwan, Timofei and Alexander,
the second, Iwan, came to be called Mendeleeff because
early in life he dealt (exchanged) in horses ("mjenu
djelatj " = to make an exchange).

Iwan in time became a student of the chief Peda-
gogical Institute in Petrograd, and sometime after his
graduation the government appointed him director of
the gymnasium at Tobolsk. Here he met and married
Maria Korniloff.

19

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

The Korniloffs belonged to an old Russian family that
had settled in Tobolsk early in 1700. They were the
first to introduce the manufacture of paper and glass in
Siberia. In 1787 Maria's father established a printing
press at Tobolsk, and two years later he began the publi-
cation of the Irtysch) the first newspaper ever published
hi Siberia.

A family tradition had it that in a previous generation
one of the Korniloffs had married a Khirgis Tartar
beauty, thereby admixing their pure Russian with
Mongolian blood. Some of the descendants showed
unquestionable oriental features, but not Dmitri, the
chemist.

Mendeleeff's name has been spelled in any number of
ways. Sometimes it has appeared as Mendeleyef,
sometimes Mendelejef, at other times Mendelejeff,
and still again Mendeleeff, Mendelejew, and Men-
deleeff. We have selected the last as perhaps the least
confusing to English ears.

Dmitri, Iwan and Maria's youngest child, was his
mother's pet, who referred to him hi the endearing
diminutive, Mitjenka.

Soon after Dmitri's birth his father became blind
from a cataract in both eyes, and this terrible calamity
forced him to resign from his position at the gymnasium.
The government's grant of a pension of one thousand
rubles ($500) was hardly enough to keep body and soul
together.

At this stage Dmitri's mother, despite the invalid on
her hands, and the eight remaining children that needed
attention, took charge of glass works belonging to her
family, and directed the factory for a number of years
with surprising efficiency.

Dmitri showed an exceptional memory from the first.
When seven years old he was sent to the gymnasium at

20

DMITRI IVANOWITCH MENDELEEF

Tobolsk, and here he excelled in mathematics, physics
and history, but for languages, and particularly Latin,
he showed no inclination. To his last day his repug-
nance for the classics never left him.

To Tobolsk many of Russia's political prisoners were
sent. In those days some of them belonging to the
Dekabrists were there. The Dekabrists were a group
of literary men who headed a revolution in 1825 with
the object of establishing a constitutional government in
Russia. The scheme ended in failure. Five of the
leaders were executed, and many of the others were
exiled to Siberia. Among these exiles in Tobolsk was
one, Bessagrin, who eventually married one of Dmitri's
elder sisters, Olga, and it was from this Bessagrin that
Dmitri received his " coaching " in science, and his
enthusiasm for it.

In 1849, in his sixteenth year, Mendeleeff graduated

from the gymnasium. But for his deficiency in the

classics he might have obtained a government stipend

i to continue his studies at a University. As it was, the

government refused all help.

Two years before this, in 1847, Mendeleeff 's father
died of consumption, and to add to the mother's plentiful
store of troubles, the glass works which she had managed
so ably, were completely destroyed by fire.

Nothing daunted, and despite her age — she was 57
1 then — Mrs, Mendeleeff, with the two remaining children
she still had to care for, Dmitri and his sister Elizabeth,
left her native city for Moscow.

She had hoped that in Moscow Dmitri could be
entered as a student of the university. But there were
i stumbling blocks. Dmitri's record did not show that
he had been at the head of his class. Neither did
Dmitri's mother know any people of political importance,
and without such acquaintances the only other way of

21

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

removing the barrier would have been an ample supply
of funds.

Foiled hi this attempt, the three proceeded to Petro-
grad. Pletnoff, the director of the Central Pedagogic
Institute hi Petrograd, had known Dmitri's father very
well, and through his assistance young Mendeleeff was
admitted as a student of the physico-mathematical
department of the Institute, and further helped finan-
cially by the government.

In this same year his noble mother, full to the brim
with years of suffering, died. In the preface to his book
on Solutions , published years later, Mendeleeff feelingly
refers to the woman who sacrificed so much for
him:

" This investigation is dedicated to the memory of a
mother by her youngest offspring. Conducting a factory
she could educate him only by her own work. She in-
structed by example, corrected with love, and in order
to devote him to science she left Siberia with him,
spending thus her last resources and strength.

" When dying she said, * Refrain from illusions, in-
sist on work and not on words. Patiently search divine
and scientific truth.' She understood how often dialec- ]
tical methods deceive, how much there is still to be
learned, and how, with the aid of science without vio-
lence, with love but firmness, all superstition, untruth and
error are removed, bringing hi their stead the safety of
undiscovered truth, freedom for further development,
general welfare, and inward happiness. Dmitri Men-
deleef regards as sacred a mother's dying words."

The Pedagogical Institute, which was altogether
abolished hi 1858, was a special training school for
secondary or high-school teachers. Though its students
met hi the same buildings as did the university students,
they were a separate body. Their professors, however,

22

DMITRI IVANOWITCH MENDELEEF

were usually also those who occupied chairs at the
university.

The more noteworthy of Mendeleeff's teachers were
Woskrensky (chemistry), Emil Lenz (physics), Ostro-
gradsky (mathematics), Ruprecht (botany), F. Brandt
(zoology), Kutorga (mineralogy), and Sawitsch (astron-
omy). With all of these men, particularly with Wos-
krensky, his standing was very high, and on his gradua-
tion he received a gold medal for all-round excellence.

Whether because of much physical hardship, or be-
cause of a delicate constitution, is not clear, but towards
the end of the course at the Institute his health altogether
failed him. Pirogoff, the famous surgeon, claimed that
only a sojourn in the south could prolong his life, and
then only for some six or seven months !

Famous surgeons, like other famous specialists, are
known to make mistakes, and Mendeleeff lived for
many more years. But his trip to the Crimea un-
questionably saved him.

This trip south he was enabled to undertake by the
government appointment which he received as chief
science master of the gymnasium im Simferopol, in the
Crimea. On the outbreak of the Crimean War Men-
deleeff was transferred to the gymnasium in Odessa.

In 1856 Mendeleeff returned to Petrograd. His
research on specific volumes earned him his master's
degree in chemistry, and also an appointment as privat-
docent at the university.

The decided promise which Mendeleeff had shown
led the Minister of Public Instruction to grant him per-
mission to visit and work in foreign laboratories. In this
way Mendeleeff, between 1859 to 1861, first worked in
Regnault's laboratory in Paris, and then in Bunsen's, in
Heidelberg. In neither place did he work directly under
the master, but quite independently on his own subject

23

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

of the physical properties of liquids. In Heidelberg the
young Russian went so far as to set up a laboratory of
his own.

Perhaps the most significant event in his European
travels was his attendance at the Karlsruhe Congress of
Chemists in 1860. Here occurred the battle royal on
atomic weights, led by the Italian, Cannizarro, which
ultimately paved the way for our present well-defined
system of chemical structures. Who can doubt that
Cannizarro's exposition of the fundamental necessity of
atomic weights for elements gave Mendeleeff ideas con-
cerning possible relationships among the elements?

On his return to Petrograd in 1861, Mendeleeff was
granted the Doctor of Science degree for a thesis on the
combination of alcohol with water. Soon afterwards he
was appointed Professor of Chemistry at the Techno-
logical Institute.

The general dearth of good chemistry text-books in
the Russian language led Mendeleeff to write one on
organic chemistry. His amazing industry is shown by
the fact that he completed this book of 500 pages in two
months ! In spite of the rapidity with which it was writ-
ten, the book established itself as the best of its kind
in the language, and the Domidoff Prize of the Petro-
grad Academy was awarded the author.

In 1869, at the age of thirty two, Mendeleeff was
appointed Professor of General Chemistry at the Uni-
versity. His colleague in the organic chemistry depart-
ment, Butlerow, was Fischer's principal forerunner in
synthetic work on the sugars.

Despite lectures, supervision of the laboratory and
various executive duties, Mendeleeff translated Wag-
ner's Chemische Technologic, a work of several vol-
umes, into Russian, and was very active in research
work.

24

DMITRI IVANOWITCH MENDELEEF

In March, 1869, Mendeleeff presented to the Russian
Chemical SocTety his immortal paper on The Relation
of the Properties to the Atomic Weights of the Ele-
ments.

Mendeleeff was not the first to believe that the ele-
ments were not merely disconnected elementary bodies.
Thus Dobereiner in 1829 pointed out that a number of
the elements could be grouped in " triads " in such a
way that the arithmetic mean of the atomic weights of
the first and third would give that of the second.

At this point some idea of atomic weight must be
given the general reader. Atomic weight sounds like
the weight of an atom. That, in reality, is quite an
exaggeration. Atoms are much too small to be seen,
let alone weighed. The number representing the
atomic weight of an element is not the absolute but the
relative weight of the atom. Thus, when we say that
the atomic weight of nitrogen is 14 we mean that its
atom is 14 times as heavy as the atom of hydrogen
(which, because it is the lightest element known, is
taken as unity), or that its weight is 14 if the weight of
the atom of oxygen is 16. We can get such numbers by
weighing many millions of atoms of each element (con-
stituting small particles which can be seen) and then
comparing their weights with the weight of a standard
element such as hydrogen or oxygen. The actual details
are too technical to be discussed here.

Dumas, some thirty years after Dobereiner, ad-
vanced a similar hypothesis, extending it to groups in
organic chemistry. But to Newlands, an Englishman,
belongs the honor of having been the first to see fairly
clearly how the eighty-odd elements could be grouped
to show their relationships. In a paper read before the
English Chemical Society in 1866, Newlands showed
that the elements could be arranged in groups of eight

25

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

along horizontal lines in such a way that elements in the
vertical columns would be those with similar properties.
The law of octaves was given to this grouping of
eights.

The reception of the theory by Newland's fellow-
chemists was anything but encouraging. One ostenta-
tious busybody wished to know whether Newlands had
tried to arrange the elements according to their initial
letters! Another suggested new possibilities in the
W- field of music with the law of octaves! The upshot of
the affair was that poor Newlands was sent home thor-
oughly ridiculed, and his paper was refused publication
in the society's journal. That, however, did not prevent
the Royal Society from making some amends twenty-
one years later by awarding him its Davy Medal for
the very paper which its sister organisation had refused
to print!

It must be added, however, in excuse for the scep-
ticism of the scientists of the day, but in no excuse for
their arrogance, that Newlands had not put his theory
to as thorough a test as he might have done. In its
incompleted form its suggestions were too vague for men
steeped in experimental work.

But Mendeleeff's paper three years later removed
most of the objections, and forced the attention of the
chemists to his scheme. Mendeleeff left nothing for
granted; his statements were accompanied by rigorous
experimental proofs.

It will be seen from the table on p. 27 that when the
elements are grouped in the ascending order of their
atomic weights they exhibit an evident periodicity of
properties; thus the ninth, neon, resembles the first,
helium,1 the tenth, sodium, resembles the second,

1 Hydrogen, the lightest element, does not find an appropriate
place in the table.

26

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EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

lithium, and so on. In other words, the elements in
the vertical columns show striking similarities in proper-
ties. Such is the gist of this law, though its details are
much more complicated.

What were its immediate results? To begin with, a
number of the elements did not fit in with Mendeleeff's
scheme. Forthwith Mendeleeff announced that the
fault lay with incorrect atomic weights which had been
assigned these elements.

Mendeleeff proved right in all such cases. Thus, to
take one example, the then accepted atomic weight for
gold was 196.2 ; accordingly it should have been placed
before such elements as platinum, iridium and osmium,
with atomic weights of 196.7, 196.7 and 198.6 respec-
tively. But Mendeleeff insisted upon putting gold after
these elements, claiming that their atomic weights, and
not his table needed revision. Subsequently, a revision
of their atomic weights gave these results:

Osmium 190.9, Iridium 193.1, Platinum 195.2 and
Gold 197.2, which was precisely the order in which
Mendeleefif had originally placed them.

But Mendeleefif did something far more daring. The
grouping according to Mendeleefif's scheme resulted in
certain gaps being left unfilled. This, said Mendeleeff,
was due to elements which awaited discovery. By a
careful consideration of the properties of adjacent ele-
ments the great Russian predicted the properties of these
undiscovered elements.

A case will be cited. To one of these unknown ele-
ments Mendeleeff gave the name ekasilicon, and certain
properties were predicted for it. In 1886 Winkler dis-
covered germanium, which showed identical properties
with this ekasilicon, as the following comparison will
show:

28

DMITRI IVANOWITCH MENDELEEF

Mendeleeff's Winkler's

Ekasilicon Germanium

Atomic weight Es, 72 Ge, 72.5

Density Es, 5.5 Ge, 5.469

Density of oxide EsO2, 4.7 GeO2, 4.703

Density of chloride EsCl4, 1.9 GeCl4, 1.887

f Less than 100 f 86 degrees

Boding point of chloride. . A .. A -\ .

I degrees centigrade I dentigrade

Density of ethide Es(C2H6)4, 0.96

Boiling point of ethide 160° 160°

These wonderful predictions did more to convince
scientists of the validity of the law than anything else
could have done. The soundness of a theory is best
exemplified by the use to which it can be put. Does it
explain anomalies? Does it guide along future paths
of investigation? The Periodic Law has more than ful-
filled these requirements. As a beacon it stands out
as prominently hi the history of chemistry as does
Dalton's Atomic Theory, which is at the very foundation
of our science to-day. Some of the most startling dis-
coveries of our time, such as the rare gases of the
atmosphere (see Ramsay) and the radioelements (see
Curie and Richards) are directly attributable to the
Periodic Law.2

The same year that saw the publication of Mendeleeff's
immortal paper, that is, in 1869, als° witnessed the pub-
lication of his Principles of Chemistry, which in some

2 It should be mentioned that Chancourtois in France, and
Lothar Meyer in Germany, also suggested periodic classification of
the elements. Lothar Meyer, in particular, with his atomic volumes
— the volumes occupied by atomic weights of the elements — was
able to uncover some striking analogies. Lothar Meyer and
Mendeleeff's papers were published in the same year — 1869. The
time unquestionably was ripe for some such formulation. In a
similar way, Darwin and Wallace, ten years earlier, unfolded the
origin of species quite independently of one another.

29

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

ways stands alone among chemical books. One of its
unique features is the very elaborate footnotes in
smaller print, which occupy more space than the actual
text, and which are mainly taken up with the personal
views of the author. These footnotes give the key to
any number of new problems, and are the source of
perennial inspiration to readers.

The two volumes of the Principles have gone through
many editions in many languages (including English),
and its text seems little antiquated even to-day, which
is an exceptionally high compliment to be paid a chemical
work that has been before the public for fifty years.
In the first chapter of volume II the reader will find an
illuminating account of the author's Periodic Law.3

Till his death, in 1907, Mendeleeff worked and wrote
incessantly. He, together with his co-workers, pub-
lished more than two hundred and fifty articles, touching
every phase of chemistry. Indeed there is not a branch
of our science but was enriched by his contributions.
Abstruse subjects such as the properties of liquids,
theories of solution and the development of the gas
laws, seem but distantly connected with the pressing
problems of the day, though they are not so far removed
as the layman is apt to think. The constitution of the
upper atmosphere, the aether, seems a metaphysical
problem perhaps. But in addition to such profound
investigations in chemical philosophy, Mendeleeff proved
of much practical value to the government and the people
of Russia by his exhaustive investigations of the Baku
oil fields.

Mendeleeff's first report on the naphtha springs in
the Caucusus was issued as early as 1866. In 1876,
in order to get further first-hand information, he visited

8 Though commonly known as the Periodic Law, the Periodic
System is a much better name for it.

30

DMITRI IVANOWITCH MENDELEEF

the Pennsylvania oil fields. The possible exhaustion of
the Baku petroleum led the Russian Government to
requisition his services in 1886. His suggestions led to
fruitful results.

In 1887, during a solar eclipse, Mendeleeff ascended
alone in a balloon to make various scientific observations.
This ascent was not without its perils, and gave some
anxious moments to his assistants, but it had its reward
in the local fame which it earned him; " for the peasant
women thereafter used to tell that Dmitri Ivanovitsch
flew on a bubble and pierced the sky, and for this the
authorities made him a chemist! "

In 1882 Mendeleeff and Lothar Meyer were awarded
the Davy Medal of the Royal Society, the Copley Medal
going to Arthur Cayley, the mathematician, and a Royal
Medal, to the late Lord Rayleigh. " Like every great
step in our knowledge of the order of nature," said the
president, William Spottiswoode, " this periodic series
not only enables us to see clearly much what we could
not see before ; it also raises new difficulties, and points
to many problems which need investigation. It is
certainly a most important extension of the science of
chemistry."

Mendeleeff was chosen for the Copley Medallist, the
Royal Society's highest award, in 1905. By this time
he had reached the very zenith of his fame. " Men
deleeff," said Sir William Huggins, "stands high
among the great philosophical chemists of the last
century."

At various other times he was honored with degrees
from Princeton, Oxford, Cambridge and Gottingen, and
in 1889 he won the Faraday Medal of the English
Chemical Society.

These marks of recognition, gratifying as they were,
could hardly compensate for the annoyances which

31

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

Mendeleeff experienced as professor at the university.
Whether envious because of his reputation, or finding
him unacceptable because he was not a well-defined
autocrat, the Academy at Petrograd black-balled him.
The Ministry of Education considered him far too much
of a liberal, whereas many of the students were of the
opinion that he never went far enough. He does not
seem to have been particularly welcome hi either
opposing camp.

Occasionally, because of his neutrality, Mendeleeff
attempted to act as mediator. On one of these occa-
sions, hi 1890, after serious disturbances at the uni-
versity by the students, resulting, as usual, from the
ruthless suppression by the police of any semblance of
freedom of thought, Mendeleeff partly pacified the under-
graduates by promising to present their petition to the
Minister of Education. This was enough to bring down
the wrath of the official ministry upon him. In a very
sharp note he was told to steer clear of aught but what
concerned him as teacher of chemistry. Mendeleeff
felt this sting so deeply that he resigned from his chair
at the university. Some amends were made three years
later when Sergius Witte, the Minister of Finance,
appointed him Director of the Bureau of Weights and
Measures — a post he retained until his death.

Those who have read his Principles can form some
opinion of what a stimulating lecturer Mendeleeff must
have been. We would have expected the author of the
Periodic Law to have emphasised the co-ordinated
links in the chain, and to have presented a unified
picture of the whole subject of chemistry. Such, indeed,
is the testimony of his students. Mr. I. Goldenberg
writes: "I was a student in the Technological Insti-
tute from 1867-9. Mendeleeff was our professor, and
in 1868 taught organic chemistry. The previous course

32

DMITRI IVANOWITCH MENDELEEF

by the professor of inorganic chemistry consisted of a
collection of recipes, very hard to remember, but,
thanks to Mendeleeff, I began to perceive that chemistry
was really a science.

" The most remarkable thing at his lectures was that
the mind of his audience worked with his, forseeing the
conclusions he might arrive at, and feeling happy when
he did reach these conclusions. More than once he
said, ' I do not wish to cram you with facts, but I want
you to be able to read chemical treatises and other
literature, to be able to analyse them, and, in fact, to
understand chemistry. And you should remember that
hypotheses are not theories.'

" He was considered among the students a liberal
man, and they thought of him as a comrade. More
than once during a disturbance between the students
and the administration Mendeleeff supported the
students, and under his influence many matters were
put right."

Prince Peter Kropotkin, the well-known Russian
socialist, was also one of Mendeleeff's students. " I
had the good fortune," writes the Prince, " to follow,
in 1867-9, his lectures on both organic and inorganic
chemistry. The former was an abridged course, which
he had the admirable idea to deliver for us students of
the mathematical branch of the physico-mathematical
faculty.

"... Imagine each of these notes [referring to the
footnotes in the Principles] developed into a beautiful
improvisation, with all the freshness of thought of a
man who, while he speaks, evolves all the arguments,
for and against, there on the spot.

" The hall was always crowded with something like
two hundred students, many of whom, I am afraid, could
not follow Mendeleeff, but for the few of us who could
4 33

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

it was a stimulant to the intellect and a lesson in sci-
entific thinking which must have left deep traces in
their development, as it did in mine."

In 1863, two years after his appointment at the Tech-
nological Institute, Mendeleeff married his first wife
(nee Lesthoff). With her he had a son, Vladimir, who
died in 1899 at the age of thirty four, and a daughter,
Olga. This marriage proved an extremely unhappy one.
For some time they lived apart, and finally they were
divorced. In 1877 he fell in love with a young lady
artist, Anna Ivanovna Popova, of Cossack origin, and
the two were married in 1881.

From his second wife Mendeleeff received his very
decided views on art. These found characteristic ex-
pression in a letter he wrote to the Russian daily, Goloss
(the voice) on the subject of a picture by Kouindji,
Night in the Ukraine: " Landscape was depicted in
antiquity, but was not in favor in those days. Even the
great masters of the sixteenth century made use of it
merely as a frame to their pictures. It was the human
form which inspired artists of that epoch; even the gods
and the Almighty himself appeared to their minds in
human shape. In this alone they found the infinite, the
inspiring, the divine. And this was because they wor-
shipped human mind and human spirit.

" This found expression in science in an exceptional
development of mathematical logic, metaphysics and
politics. Later, however, men lost faith in the absolute
and original power of human reason, and they discovered
that the study of external nature assists even in the
correct appreciation of the nature of the human inner
self. Thus nature became an object of study; a natural
science arose unknown either to antiquity or to the period
of the Renaissance.

34

DMITRI IVANOWITCH MENDELEEF

" Observation and experience, inductive reasoning,
submission to the inevitable, soon gave rise to a new and
more powerful, more productive method of seeking
truth. It thus became evident that human nature,
including its consciousness and reason, is merely a
part of the whole, which is easier to comprehend as
such from the study of external nature than of the inner
man. External nature thus ceased to be subservient to
man and became his equal, his friend. . . . Inductive
and experimental science became a crown of knowledge,
royal physics and mathematics had now to be content
with modest questioning of nature.

" Landscape painting was born simultaneously with
the change, or perhaps a little earlier. Thus it will
probably come to pass that our age will hereafter be
known as the epoch of natural science in philosophy and
of landscape hi art. Both derive their materials from
sources external to man. . . . Man has, however, not
been lost sight of as an object of study and of artistic
creation, but he now appears, not as a potentate or as a
microcosm, but merely as part of a complex whole."

Mendeleeff 's wife adorned his study with pen sketches
of such scientific celebrities as Lavoisier, Descartes,
Newton, Galileo, Copernicus, Graham, Mitscherlich,
Rose, Chevreul, Faraday, Berthelot, Dumas, etc.

The family first lived at the university, then in a
house specially built for the Director of the Bureau of
Weights and Measures. In this house his children by
his second wife were born: Lioubov (Aimee), Ivan
(Jean), and the twins Maria and Vassili (Basile).

In appearance Mendeleeff was a genuine Slav.
Medium in height, rather powerfully set, with an abund-
ance of hair reminding one of a Paderewski, expressive
blue eyes, high cheek bones, an immense forehead, he
commanded attention wherever he went. At home he

35

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

went about in loose garments of his own design, some-
what after the fashion of his illustrious compatriot,
Tolstoy.

For all the pomp of court life, in fact, for any osten-
tatious display, he had nothing but contempt. His
presentation to Tsar Alexander III was made possible
only by the permission which was given him to wear
anything he pleased. This embraced non-interference
with his proud locks.

His democracy showed itself in peculiar ways. For
example, he always insisted on travelling third class in
his short journeys from Petrograd to his estate, but at
the station his driver, Zassorin, was always at hand with
the troika and a pair of magnificent greys, and the
somewhat shabby third class traveller became suddenly
transformed into the wealthy landowner.

Mendeleeff was a Russian of the temperamental
variety — a quite common variety of Russian; he was
rather hard to live with, at times smooth and silky in
speech, at other times quite uncontrollable hi temper,
and for no apparent reason.

Though unconcerned as to his personal appearance,
Mendeleeff was extremely sensitive as to the way
people received him. He knew himself to be a genius,
and he expected people to pay homage. In this con-
nection Sir William Ramsay tells of an amusing incident
which occurred at a dinner in London, given to W. H.
Perkin in 1884: " Iwas very early at the dinner and
was putting off time, looking at the names of people to
be present, when a peculiar foreigner, every hair of
whose head acted in independence of every other, came
up bowing. I said, * We are to have a good attendance
I think.' He said, * I do not spik English.' I said,
' Vielleicht sprechen Sie Deutch? ' He replied, ' Ja
ein wenig. Ich bin MendeleenV I did not say, * Ich

36

DMITRI IVANOWITCH MENDELEEF

bin Ramsay,' but ' Ich heisse Ramsay,' which was per-
haps more modest. His method reminded me of * the
only Jones.' Well, we had twenty minutes or so before
anyone else turned up and we talked our mutual subject
fairly out. He is a nice sort of a fellow, but his German
is not perfect. He said he was raised hi East Siberia
and knew no Russian even till he was seventeen years
old. I suppose he is a Kalmuck, or one of these out-
landish creatures."

In 1900 the Prussian Academy celebrated its two-
hundredth anniversary, and the University of Petrograd
sent Mendeleeff as its delegate. At the banquet van't
Hoff presided over one of the side tables, with Laden-
burg (the Breslau representative) to the right, and
Mendeleeff to the left of him. Mendeleeff was an
inveterate smoker, and simply chafed because he could
not eat and smoke alternately. Ladenburg tells us that
immediately after the soup Mendeleeff began to pump
those around him as to whether he could be allowed to
smoke. They answered him that that was out of the
question. But he repeated his question after the first,
and after the second courses. Then dear old van't
Hoff, who hated to see anyone suffer so, stepped hi
with the risky suggestion that he also would join hi a
smoke. And the two went to it, to the great relief of
Mendeleeff, who from then on proved an enjoyable
companion. But the sad side of the incident was that
van't Hoff, who had begun to show incipient signs of
tuberculosis, had been expressly forbidden smoking.

The present outcry against the classics, and the belief
by many in America and England that a portion of the
classical scholarship of statesmen could well be dis-
placed by scientific information, was echoed by Mende-
leeff long before the World War emphasised the im-
perative necessity of a utilitarian education. In 1901

37

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

he published a pamphlet on Remarks on Public Instruc-
tion in Russia, in which there occurs the following:

"The fundamental direction of Russian education
should be living and real, not based on dead languages,
grammatical rules, and dialectical discussions, which
without experimental control, bring self-deceit, illusion,
presumption, and selfishness."

Universal peace and the brotherhood of nations, says
Mendeleeff, with, we are afraid, a super-abundance of
confidence in his view, can only be brought about by a
vital realism in schools. " For such reforms are re-
quired many strong realists; classicists are only fit to
be landowners, capitalists, civil seiyants, men of letters,
critics, describing and discussing, but helping only
indirectly the cause of popular needs. We could live
at the present day without a Plato, but a double number
of Newtons is required to discover the secrets of nature,
and to bring life into harmony with the laws of nature."

From such remarks the reader may conclude that
Mendeleeff was perilously near being a radical. As a
matter of fact this is no nearer the truth than the infer-
ence that because he used the third class railway com-
partment he was to be considered one of the people.
Mendeleeff, in fact, was regarded by many as a rigid
monarchist. The Russo-Japanese War, for example,
found him in the camp of the jingos. The revolutionary
outbreaks during the war, and Russia's defeat, un-
questionably hastened his end. Scientific Russia, which
had bestirred itself to great undertakings in 1904 in
honor of the Master's seventieth celebration, found itself
little encouraged hi its proceedings by the broken spirit
in Petrograd.

When he was hi his library and wrote articles, Mende-
leefif described himself as an " evolutionist of peacable
type."

38

DMITRI IVANOWITCH MENDELEEF

His attitude towards women was equally characteristic.
To show his broad-mindedness, he employed some of
them at the Bureau of Weights and Measures, and even
lectured to them. But he did not hesitate to make clear
that they were decidedly inferior to men in intellect.
Feminists, he declared, perhaps with some truth, aimed
not so much at equality of political position as at oppor-
tunities for work, to escape inactivity.

His day's work done, Mendeleeff would retire to his
estate at Tuer, Boblova, and dine at six. Then he was
very fond of company, and could be seen at his best.
Mendeleeff at his best had hardly a peer, particularly
when the subject turned to the philosophy of science.
After dinner, if alone with his family, he would puff at
his cigarette and usually read books of adventure —
Fenimore Cooper, Jules Verne and the like. Some-
times, being really fond of literature, he would read
deeper things. Among Russians, Maicofif and Tutt-
cheff were his favorites; outside of his own country he
loved Byron best. Byron, as we shall see, was also
van't Hoff's literary hero.

The theatre saw Mendeleeff seldom, but music was a
favored form of recreation. In this field of art he had
decided preference for Beethoven.

" But of all things I love nothing more in life than to
have my children around me ; " which brings us to the
most lovable side of Mendeleeffs personality, and here
we shall leave him.

Mendeleeff died in 1907 from an attack of pneu-
monia. Just prior to falling into an unconscious state,
he had requested that Jules Verne's Journey to the
North Pole be read to him.

Tolstoy commands no more dominating position in
literature than does Mendeleeff hi chemistry. Both
belong to the world at large, and the world is thankful

39

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

to them and to Russia for having enriched the intellect
of so many of us.

References

Some of the facts come from private sources. I have,
however, drawn freely on Prof. Tilden's article (i).
Prof. Walden's essay (2) also proved very useful. Sir
Edward Thorpe's sketch (3) carries us up to 1889.
MendeleefFs book (5) is well worth examination. Other
references are 4, 6 and 7.

1. W. A. Tilden: MendelSeff Memorial Lecture. Journal of the

Chemical Society (London), 95, 2007 (1908).

2. P. Walden: Dmitri Iwanowitsch Mendelejeff. Berichte der

deutchen chemischen Gesellschaft (Berlin), 41, 4719 (1908).

3. Sir Edward Thorpe: Essays in Historical Chemistry (Macmillan

and Co. 1911).

4. D. I. Mendeleeff: An Attempt Towards a Chemical Conception

of the Ether (Longmans, Green and Co. 1904).

5. D. I. Mendeleeff : The Principles of Chemistry. 2 vols. (Long-

mans, Green and Co. 1905.)

6. F. P. Venable: The Development of the Periodic Law (Chemical

Publishing Company. 1896).

7. A. E. Garett: The Periodic Law (D. Appleton and Co. 1909).

40

WILLIAM RAMSAY

|N that elegant tribute to Ramsay, written in
the days when comradeship between the
scientists of England and Germany was close,

Ostwald summarizes him as one belonging

to the romantic type in science. Romantic he was, for
his imagination was unlimited. The secret of Ramsay's
great triumphs lay in the fact that with this imagination
there was a well-balanced knowledge of the science,
with a seer's insight into the significance of its laws.
Bold in the conception of a problem, he was brilliant
beyond comparison hi its execution. With no fetish to
hold him, with the mantle of the prophet about him,
and with amazing manipulative skill, he layed bare, in
rapid succession, a regular little battalion of new gases
in the atmosphere, followed by transmutation experi-
ments which made the scientific world gasp and hold its
breath in expectancy of the next dare-devil leap.

This genius, born in Glasgow in 1852, did not spring
from any geniuses, but like many another man of talent,
his stock was of a fairly ordinary type. To be sure,
there was an uncle with a reputation as a geologist, and
his own father had some scientific tastes, but nothing at
all to warrant such outpourings in the offspring. When
eleven years old he joined the Third Latin Class of the
Glasgow Academy, and during the three succeeding
years at the institution he did little Latin, gained no
prizes, and did much dreaming. Ramsay describes
himself in a short autobiography as "to a certain ex-
tent precocious, though idle and dreamy youngster."
This fits in with Ostwald's theory of the genius: " The

41

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

precpciousness is a practically universal phenomenon of
incipient genius, and the dreamy quality indicates that
original production of thought which lies at the basis of
all creative activity." Even thus early he evinced a
passion for languages, for it is recorded that during
sermon time at church he read the French and German
texts of the Bible and translated them into English. In
after years, as president of an international scientific
gathering, he would astound the assembly by addressing
them successively in French, German and Italian.

His introduction to chemistry came in quite an unex-
pected way. A football skirmish resulted in his breaking
a leg, and to lessen the monotony of convalescence,
Ramsay read Graham's Chemistry, with the object, as
he frankly confesses, of learning how to make fireworks.
During the next four years his bedroom was full of
bottles, and test tubes, and often full of strange odors
and of startling noises. But systematic chemistry was
not taken up till 1869, three years after he had entered
the University of Glasgow. Then, it seems, the passion
came on, and with it, a passion for the cognate science,
physics. This resulted in an introduction to William
Thompson (later Lord Kelvin), the professor, who set
the youngster upon the elevating task of getting the
" kinks " out of a bundle of copper wire, an operation
which lasted a week. It is to be presumed that Thomp-
son was favorably impressed with the manner in which
this piece of research was carried out, for Ramsay was
immediately introduced to a quadrant electrometer and
asked to study its construction and use.

A year's introductory study of chemistry decided
Ramsay upon his career, and with his parents' blessing
he set out for Heidelberg in 1870, to be exchanged for
Tubingen some months later. In Tubingen ruled
Fittig, whose lectures were " distinct and clear,"

42

WILLIAM RAMSAY

whose scholarship was sound, and whose research was
methodical. The two years spent at Tubingen were full
of work and little play. " I was up this morning," he
writes to his father, " at 5.30 and studied and took my
breakfast from 6 to 7, — a class from 7 to 8, one from
8 to 9, from 9 to 3 laboratory (I lunch now to have more
time for work, and don't dine till 6), and from 3 to 5 I
studied, then from 5 to 6 lecture, and then I dined.
And now at 8 I must start again." And so this was
kept up — all the time, curiously enough, with emphasis
on organic chemistry, a branch of the science which
Ramsay almost wholly abandoned in his later and most
productive years — till the time for the Ph.D. examin-
ation. " On Monday at 7 it began and lasted till
half-past 12; then in the afternoon from 3 to 8, so
we had a good spell of it." The questions in chem-
istry were: (a) the resemblances and differences be-
tween the compounds of carbon and silicon, and (6)
the relation between glycerine and its newer deriva-
tives and the other compounds containing three atoms
of carbon; in physics: (a) the different methods for
determining the specific gravity of gases and vapors,
and (b) the phenomena which may be observed in
crystals hi polarised light. " I managed to answer the
first perfectly, the second however, not so well, and
the two questions in physics pretty well. Then to-night
we had the oral exam. The five professors who com-
pose the faculty were there. Fittig gave some very
difficult questions. Reusch (Physics), on the other
hand, very easy ones. . . . We had to dress up and put
on white kids, and I had to get a ' tile ' especially for
the occasion. Then we were sent out after the exam,
for about 5 minutes and were then called in and formally
told we had passed."

43

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

A dissertation on " toluic and nitrotoluic acids,"
which gave no glimpse of the future before him, com-
pleted Ramsay's Ph.D. requirements, and he returned
to Glasgow, where he became assistant in the Young
Laboratory of Technical Chemistry. And now Ramsay
had to turn his attention from organic to inorganic chem-
istry, for most of the courses at the technical school
were devoted to the latter. Though the physico-
chemistry background was entirely lacking, and there-
fore the knowledge obtained could hardly have been
more than miscellaneous, innumerable facts were picked
up and stored for future reference.

An opening as tutorial assistant at Glasgow University
offered the possibilities of a more congenial academic
atmosphere, and also the hope of continuing his inter-
rupted research hi organic chemistry. " The cellars of
the University Laboratory contained a large collection
of fractions of ' Dippel-Oil ' prepared by Professor
Thomas Anderson. These were regarded by Ferguson
(his successor), whose interest hi chemistry was almost
entirely that of an antiquary, more or less hi the light
of museum specimens, and he was horrified when Ram-
say suggested that he should be allowed to * investi-
gate ' them, but he eventually gave way to Ramsay's
importunity. The result was a very substantial addition
to our knowledge of the pyridine bases and their deriva-
tives." l

The chemistry of dyes and explosives was not to be
his life work. How he turned from this to the more
mathematical branch of the subject is ascribed by
Ramsay himself to problems he encountered in attempts
to determine the molecular weights of some of his
organic compounds by the Victor Meyer vapor density
method. But we must also add that Ramsay, with that

1 Sir James Dobbie.

44

WILLIAM RAMSAY

instinct for detecting the truly important among a mass
of new theories and facts, which was one of his greatest
assets, early foresaw the part the new science of physical
chemistry would play in the development of chemistry.
Thus he was one of the earliest hi England to appreciate
the true significance of Guldberg and Waage's Law of
Mass action, just as, at a later date, he was among the
first to seize upon and translate van't HofPs celebrated
paper on the analogy between the state of substances
in solution and the same when in a state of gas. The
Victor Meyer method suggested to him experiments on
the volume of liquids at their boiling point, and this in
turn gave rise to a whole series of new possibilities, the
experimental side of which kept him and his collabor-
ators, particularly Young and Shields, busy even after
he had settled in University College years later.2

For six years Ramsay remained assistant at Glasgow
University, and though during that time he had been a
candidate for several chairs and lectureships, nothing
came of any of them. So discouraged did he become
that there was much discussion in the family as to the
advisability of starting business as a chemical manu-
facturer. But before this scheme could be put into
execution a vacancy at University College, Bristol,
presented itself.

The story goes that his knowledge of Dutch saved the
day. According to this account one of the members of
the University Council, a minister, was much perplexed
with a Dutch text in his possession, and Ramsay volun-

2 " It was while blowing the bulbs used in this research (the
volumes of liquids at their boiling point), I believe, that he first
became aware of the value of the asset he possessed for physical
work in his skill as a glass-blower. He had learnt the art at Tub-
ingen, although it was only in his later researches that his marvellous
manipulative power was fully developed." — Sir James Dobbie.

45

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

teered a translation. The result was Ramsay's appoint-
ment by a majority of one !

The stipend was fixed at a minimum of £400 ($2,000)
per year. " The professor," read the contract, " will
be required to give three lectures per week for the
first two terms, say 60 lectures, together with class
instruction in connection therewith . , . and a short
course of lectures in the third term. He will also be
required to superintend the laboratory during the whole
session, and to give evening lectures once a week during
the first two terms, together with class instruction in
connection therewith. . . . The scheme of the College
contemplates the possibility of occasional lectures being
delivered in neighboring towns by the Professor or his
assistant. ... In connection with the Cloth working
Industry, special instruction in dyeing, etc. may be
required under an arrangement not yet concluded
with the worshipful the Cloth-workers' Company of
London."

The professor, not yet turned thirty, was to be kept
busy on the job, with very little opportunity for research —
an altogether minor consideration to the worthy coun-
cillors. But they had not reckoned on Ramsay's energy
and capacity. Determinations of the density of gases,
of the specific volumes of liquids at their boiling point,
of the vapor pressures and critical constants of liquids
were soon in full blast. And then came those classical
determinations on the thermal properties of solids and
liquids, and on evaporation and dissociation, most of
which was done with his assistant, Young, which con-
tinued at full blast for the next five years until Ramsay's
transfer to London. This appointment came hi 1887.
By that time Ramsay's reputation was such that the
following year he was elected an F.R.S. (Fellow of the
Royal Society).

46

WILLIAM RAMSAY

In London his physico-chemical researches were
further extended. Among these, particular mention
should be made of perhaps the most brilliant of them
all — the measurement of surface tension up to the critical
temperature, which led to the well-known law supplying
us with a method for determining the molecular weight
of liquids. Here Ramsay had an able assistant hi
Shields.

In 1890 the British Association met at Leeds, and two
of the great Continental founders of modern physical
Chemistry, van't Hoff and Ostwald, were present.
Ramsay, who represented the school in England,
naturally took a keen interest in this meeting. " Ram-
say and Ostwald met for the first tune as fellow-guests
in my house, which became accordingly a sort of cyclonic
center of the polemical storm that raged during the whole
week. . . . The discussion was incessant. ... I re-
member conducting a party to Fountains Abbey on the
Saturday and hearing nothing but talk of the ionic
theory amid the beauties of Studley Royal. The climax,
however, was reached the next day, Sunday. The dis-
cussion began at luncheon when Fitzgerald raised the
question of the molecular integrity of the salt in the soup
and walked round the table with a diagram to confound
van't Hoff and Ostwald. . . . Ramsay was no silent
spectator. Being a convinced ionist, he was eager in
helping out the expositions of Ostwald, whose English
at that tune was imperfect and explosive, and his wit
and humor played over the whole proceedings. . . .
It was the beginning of relations of great mutual sym-
pathy and regard between Ramsay and Ostwald, which
lasted till they were divided by their respective national
sympathies at the unhappy outbreak of war." 3

8 Professor Smithells.

47

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

And now we come to a momentous event in the career
of our hero. Lord Raleigh had for some time been en-
gaged hi determinations of the exact densities of a
number of gases. Among these was nitrogen. In his
experiments Raleigh found that the density of nitrogen
obtained from the air was slightly but consistently
higher than that obtained from artificial sources. Writ-
ing to Nature (1892) he says: "I am much puzzled
by some results as to the density of nitrogen and shall
be obliged if any of your chemical readers can offer sug-
gestions as to the cause. According to two methods of
preparation I obtain quite distinct values. The relative
difference, amounting to about i/iooo part, is small hi
itself; but it lies entirely outside the errors of experi-
ment." The difference in the weights of one liter of the
gas obtained in the one case from atmospheric air and
in the other from ammonia varied by about 6 in 1,200,
or about 0.5 percent, but the accuracy of the method did
not involve an error of more than 0.02 percent.

With that keen scent for any promising material
Ramsay immediately took up the problem. Some years
previous he had found that nitrogen is absorbed fairly
readily by magnesium. This suggested to him that by
first getting rid of the oxygen hi the air, and passing
the remaining nitrogen repeatedly over heated magne-
sium, any other gas that might possibly be present hi
the atmosphere would remain unabsorbed. This tm-
absorbed gas was isolated and found to give a charac-
teristic spectrum. The name argon (Gk., inert) was
given to the newly discovered ingredient of the atmos-
phere. It proved to be more refractory than the com-
paratively inert nitrogen : it just simply would not make
friends and combine with any other element!

Shortly after this, Ramsay's attention was called to
some experiments of Hillebrandt, of the U. S, Geological

48

•g

WILLIAM RAMSAY

Survey, in which he obtained a gas believed to be nitro-
gen from certain minerals, particularly one called
cleveite, but which was now suspected to contain argon
as well. Ramsay lost no time. From it he obtained
argon, to be sure, but also another gas, with a spectrum
all its own, which showed it to be identical with an ele-
ment present in the chromosphere of the sun, and which
until then had been considered peculiar to the sun.
Lockyer years ago gave the name " helium " to it, and
now Ramsay had rediscovered it on mother earth.
But let the discoverer himself tell the exciting news.
On the 24th of March, 1895, he writes to his wife:4
" Let's take the biggest piece of news first. I bottled
the new gas in a vacuum tube, and arranged so that I
could see its spectrum and that of argon in the same
spectroscope at the same time. There is argon in the
gas; but there was a magnificent yellow line, brilliantly
bright, not coincident with but very close to the sodium
yellow line. I was puzzled but began to smell a rat.
I told Crookes,5 and on Saturday morning when Harley,
Shields,6 and I were looking at the spectrum in the
dark room a telegram came from Crookes. He had sent
a copy here7 and I enclose that copy. You may wonder
what it means. Helium is the name given to a line
in the solar spectrum, known to belong to an element,

4 Ramsay married Margaret, daughter of George Stevenson
Buchanan, in August, 1881, soon after he had been appointed
Principal of Bristol College — a position he attained one year after
his arrival in Bristol. This union proved a particularly happy one.
" To have such a helpmate as my wife has brought me happiness
which I must acknowledge with the greatest thankfulness." And
at a later date he wrote to a friend: " You have got a good son
and daughter and that is much to rejoice at. So have I."

6 Sir William Crooks, the famous physicist and chemist.

& His two assistants.

7 12 Arundel Gardens, their home.

49

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

but that element has hitherto been unknown on earth.
... It is quite overwhelming and beats argon. I tele-
graphed to Berthelot8 at once yesterday—' Gaz obtenu
par moi clevite melange argon helium. Crookes iden-
tifie spectre. Faites communication Academic lundi. —
Ramsay.' ... I have written Lord Raleigh and I'll
send a note to the R.S. [Royal Society] to-morrow. . . ."

The first public account of helium was given to a semi-
bewildered audience at the annual meeting of the
chemical society in 1895, on the occasion of the presenta-
tion of the Faraday medal to Lord Raleigh. Further
investigations proved that helium occurred hi quite a
number of minerals and mineral waters. To Kayser,
however, was left the proof of its presence in the air.
Like argon it simply refused to combine with any other
substance.

To the ancients air was a source of investigation, and
it had remained so. Till 1894 no one, least of all a
scientist,9 would have suspected the existence in the
atmosphere of undiscovered elements. Ramsay and
Raleigh's discovery shook the scientific world. Recog-
nition came from all parts. Lord Kelvin, as president
of the Royal Society, presented Ramsay with the Davy
Medal, with the following comment: "... The re-
searches on which the award of the Davy Medal to
Professor Ramsay is chiefly founded are, firstly, those
which he has carried on, in conjunction with Lord
Raleigh, in the investigation of the properties of argon,
and in the discovery of unproved and rapid methods of
getting it from the atmosphere; and secondly, the dis-
covery in certain rare minerals, of a new elementary
gas which appears to be identical with the hitherto hypo-
thetical solar element, to which Mr. Lockyer many years

8 A famous French chemist.

9 Cavendish, in 1785, did suspect some such possibility.

50

WILLIAM RAMSAY

ago gave the name of ' helium." . . . The conferring of
the Davy Medal on Professor Ramsay is a crowning act
of recognition of his work on argon and helium which
has already been recognised as worthy of honor by
scientific societies in other countries. For his dis-
coveries of these gases he has already been awarded the
Foreign Membership of the Societe Philosophique de
Geneve and of the Leyden Philosophical Society. He
has had the Barnard Medal of Columbia College awarded
to him by the American Academy of Sciences, and within
the last few weeks he has been elected a Foreign Cor-
respondent of the French Academic des Sciences."

Such was the excitement aroused by these discoveries
that even young students were filled with the epidemic.
We are told that " answers to examination questions
showed that oxygen as a constituent of our air was
almost forgotten hi the anxiety on the part of the candi-
date to show that he or she knew all about argon."

But Ramsay had not yet sufficiently dumbfounded his
scientific confreres. From a careful study of Mende-
leeff 's periodic grouping of the elements, he came to the
conclusion that another inert gas ought to exist between
helium and argon, employing a process of reasoning quite
analogous to one used by the celebrated Russian many
years before when, with the help of his periodic table,
he predicted the discovery of new elements. Ramsay
ransacked every possible source for this new element:
minerals from all parts of the globe, mineral waters from
Britain, France and Iceland; meteorites from inter-
stellar space — all without result. A clue was at length
obtained when he found that by diffusion argon could be
separated into a lighter and heavier portion. This sug-
gested the presence of the unknown gas as an impurity

'And helium, the inert gas, a chemical curiosity in 1895, is now
displacing hydrogen in baloons!

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

in argon. It was evident that the unknown gas, if
present, could be there in minute quantities only to have
escaped detection. That meant that the larger the
quantity of argon employed the better the possibilities
of getting appreciable quantities of the unknown con-
stituent.

A simple method of separating the constituents in a
mixture of liquids is to boil the mixture, and collect
fractions of the condensed vapor. Each constituent will
usually go off at a fairly definite temperature. This, hi
principle, was the method employed by Ramsay, and his
assistant, Travers. They prepared to begin with, no
less than 15 liters of liquid argon! " On distilling liquid
argon, the first portions of the gas to boil off were found
to be lighter than argon; and on allowing the liquid air
to boil off slowly, heavier gases came off at last. It was
easy to recognise these gases by help of the spectroscope,
for the light gas, to which we gave the name neon or
* the new one,' when electrically excited emits a bril-
liant flame colored light; and one of the heavy gases,
which we called krypton or * the hidden one ' is char-
acterised by two brilliant lines, one in the yellow and
one hi the green part of the spectrum. The third gas,
named xenon or ' the stranger ' gives out a greenish-
blue light, and is remarkable for a very complex spectrum
in which blue lines are conspicuous." 10

A trio, neon, xenon, krypton, added to helium and
argon — making five new gases — and all in the atmos-
phere !

Further recognition came from the Chemical Society
of London. They awarded Ramsay the Longstaff medal,
given triennially to the Fellow of the Chemical Society
who, in the opinion of the Council, has done the most
to promote Chemical science by research. "If I may

10 Ramsay, quoted by Letts.

53

WILLIAM RAMSAY

say a word of disparagement," added Mr. Vernon Har-
court, the president, in presenting the medal, " it is "
—and here we can see the twinkle in his eye — " that
these elements (argon, helium, etc.) are hardly worthy
of the position in which they are placed. If other ele-
ments were of the same unsociable character Chemistry
would not exist."

Ramsay's studies on helium led him to ponder over
this question: why is helium found hi only minerals
which contain uranium and thorium — substances which
give rise to radio-active phenomena? Attempts to
answer this led him into the field of radio-activity, with
results which even surpassed his investigations on the
inert gases of the atmosphere. In 1903, in conjunction
with Soddy, he succeeded in proving that helium, an
element, could be produced from radium, another ele-
ment. The transmutation of the elements come to life
again! Those poor, foolish old alchemists, we were
always led to believe, wasted their lives in vain attempts
to transmute the base metals into gold. And here
comes the dashing Ramsay, bold, as usual, to audacity,
and calmly announces that his experiments prove the
alchemists not to have been such fools after all!

Succeeding experiments on the action of radium salts
on copper and lead solutions led Ramsay to believe that
copper and lead can undergo disintegration into sodium
and lithium respectively — two entirely different ele-
ments! These latter claims still wait to be verified,
but there is reasonable hope for assuming that various
experimenters throughout the world will soon undertake
the task of carefully repeating the entire work, now that
peace is once again with us.11

A fitting award for these achievements was the be-
stowal of the Nobel Prize to Ramsay in 1904. The dis-

11 See the article on Madame Curie.

53

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

tribution of the prizes took place in Stockholm on Decem-
ber loth of that year, in the presence of King Oscar and
the royal family, foreign ministers and members of the
cabinet, and many leading representatives of science,
art and literature. After speeches had been delivered
by the vice-president and other representatives of the
Nobel Committee, and of the Academies of Science,
medicine and literature, King Oscar personally pre-
sented Lord Rayleigh (prize winner in physics), Sir
William Ramsay12 (chemistry) and Professor Pavloff
(physiology) with their prizes, together with diplomas
and gold medals.13 The distribution of the prizes was
followed by a banquet, at which the Crown Prince pre-
sided. Count Morner proposed the health of Professor
Pavloff, Professor Petterson that of Sir William Ramsay,
and Professor Hasselberg that of Lord Rayleigh. The
following day Ramsay delivered a lecture on argon and
helium at the Academy of Sciences, which was followed
by a dinner given in his honor by King Oscar.
Writing from Switzerland to a friend some weeks later
Ramsay says: " We had a most gorgeous time for nearly
a week, dining with all the celetrities, including old King
Oscar. The old gentleman was very kindly and took
Lord R. and me into his private room and showed us all
his curiosities, the portraits of his sons when they were
children and his reliques of Gustavus Adolphus and of
Charles XII. The Crown Prince told Mag (his wife)
that it was a difficult job to be a king, thereby confirming
the Swan of Avon. He said that whatever one supposed
a Norwegian would do he invariably did the opposite.
Indeed there was nearly a bloodless revolution while

12 Ramsay had been created a Knight Commander of the Bath
(K.C.B.) in 1902, which carried with it the title of " Sir."

13 The sum of money attached to each prize amounts to about
$40,000.

54

WILLIAM RAMSAY

we were there ; the Prime Minister of Norway was there
and I believe the dilemma was only postponed."

Ramsay remained at University College until 1912,
when he retired. Two years prior to this, in conjunction
with Dr. Gray, he determined the density of the emana-
tion obtained from radium (which Ramsay named niton)
involving the mastery of experimental detail which estab-
lished him once for all as the great wizard of the labor-
atory. The total volume of the gas under examination
was not much beyond i/io cubic millimeter — a bubble
which can scarcely be seen. To weigh this amount at
all accurately required a balance turning with a load not
greater than 1/100,000 milligram.

When war broke out Ramsay placed his services at
the disposal of the government. Much he could not do.
In July, 1915, he writes to a friend that he had had
several huge polypi extracted from his left nostril. " I
have stood them for years, one gets into the habit of
bearing discomforts, but it is a great relief." The relief
was to be only temporary. Another operation became
necessary in November. "I was in the surgeon's
hands on November loth and again on the isth, and he
did an operation on my left antrum for a tumor, I believe
very successfully. Since then, last Monday, I was
irradiated for 24 hrs. with X-rays as a precaution against
recurrence. Luckily it is of the kind which can be
stopped by Radium. I have had a very bad time."
He died on July 23, 1916.

Ramsay had lived not a long life, but a very fruitful
and happy one. Writing to president Ira Remsen, of
Johns Hopkins, a few months before his death, Ramsay
concludes his letter with " Well, I am tired, and must
stop. I look back on my long friendship with you14 as

14 Dating back to the Tubingen days.

55

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

a very happy episode in a very happy life; for my life
has been a very happy one."

Ramsay was many-sided. He was an excellent ex-
ample of the very opposite of Punch's dry-as-dust
philosopher. Among musicians15 and among artists16
he held his own, for he was an accomplished amateur in
both groups. As a linguist he probably has had few
equals among scientists. And those of us who, as late
as 1912, heard him move a vote of thanks to Professor
Gabriel Bertrand, of the Sorbonne, after the latter's
lecture to the members of the International Congress
of Chemists, will have formed a pretty good picture of
his charm and ability as a speaker.

Of the many letters that have been preserved, perhaps
none sums up so well the characteristics of Ramsay as
the following, written to his friend, Dr. Dobbie :

"LE HAVRE,

" Monday, the Something or other August, 1877.
" My dear Debbie,

" Some fool of a Frenchman has stolen all the paper
belonging to the French Association, and has left only
this hah* sheet with Le Havre at the top. From the pre-
ceding sentence you will have already guessed that the
French Ass. is capering around Havre at present, that I
form one of the distinguished foreign members, and

15 " I spent many evenings at their home, where William (Ram-
say) enlivened the company with songs, which in later years were
greeted with enthusiastic applause by his students at social evenings
of the University College Students* Club. ... He had a very
good voice, played his own accompanyments, and was an expert
whistler." — Otto Hehner, a friend.

" " Another amusement of Ramsay's was sketching in water
colors, an art in which he possessed no inconsiderable share of
the talent which belongs to his cousins, Sir Andrew Ramsay's
family." — Sir James Dobbie.

56

WILLIAM RAMSAY

that all is going as merrily as a marriage bell. Voici 5
jours that I find myself here. I went to Paris with
three spirits more wicked than myself, lawyers — a fear-
ful compound 3 lawyers and a chemist — just like NCU for
all the world, liable to explode at any moment. . . .
I have made the acquaintance with a whole lot of chem-
ists, Dutch and French, and have found an old Dutch-
man named Gunning ravished to find someone who
shares his ideas about matter, chemical combination,
etc. We excurted yesterday the whole day and talked
French and German alternately all the time. When
we wanted to be particularly distinct French was all the
go. For energy and strong denunciation German came
of use. You can't say * Potz-teufel ! ' in French or
* Donnerwetter potztausend sacramento ! ' An old cove,
also a Dutchman, DeVrig, with bowly legs and a visage
like this (sketch profile) is also a very nice old boy.
The nose is the chief feature of resemblance in the
annexed representation. Wurtz and Schukenberger
are both Alsatians and of course are much more ge-
muthlich than the echter Franzose, but on the whole the
fellows I have got to know are very pleasant. Some of
the younger lot and I kneipe every evening. Then we
bathe every day too in fine stormy water.17 Eh bien,
what is there to say of more? I am going straight back
to Glasgow on Wednesday by the special steamer to

17 " He (Ramsay) was a very strong and graceful swimmer and
could dive further than any amateur I have seen. When we were
in Paris in 1876 the four of us used to go to one of the baths in
the Seine every forenoon, and after the first time, when Ramsay
was ready to dive, the bathman would pass round the word that
the Englishman was going to dive, and everyone in the establish-
ment, including the washerwoman outside, would crowd in and take
up positions to watch him. He dived the whole length of the bath
and sometimes turned there under water and came back a part of
the length."— H. B. Fyfe, a life-long friend.

57

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

Glasgow. My money is about done, so I must bolt.
... By the way I forgot to tell you that I had the cheek
to read a communication on picoline, in French, which
was received with loud applause. There was some
remarks made afterwards very favorable, tho' I say it as
shouldn't say it. Adoo. Write to Glasgow and tell
me Wie's Geht. " Yours very Sincerely,

"W. RAMSAY."

References

For much of the material I am indebted to Tilden's
life of Ramsay (i). A fine appreciation of Ramsay at
his prime is given by Ostwald (2). Soddy's (3) is a
lovely tribute by a gifted writer. T. C. Chaudhuri (4)
is responsible for an appreciative little memoir, full of
oriental coloring. Ramsay's two books (5, 6) deal with
the gases of the atmosphere and radium.

1. Sir W. A. Tilden: Sir William Ramsay (Macmillan and Co.

1918).

2. Wilhelm Ostwald: Sir William Ramsay. Nature (London),

88, 339 (1912).

3. Frederick Soddy: Sir William Ramsay. Nature (London), 97,

482 (1916).

4. T. C. Chaudhuri: Sir William Ramsay (Butterworth and Co.,

India. 1918).

5. William Ramsay: The Gases of the Atmosphere (Macmillan

and Co. 1902).

6. William Ramsay: Essays Biographical and Chemical (Constable

and Co., London. 1908). (See the chapter on radium and
its products.)

THEODORE WILLIAM RICHARDS

lURING the latter half of the nineteenth
century William T. Richards rose to a posi-
tion of prominence among American artists.
His paintings of landscape, particularly his
interpretations of the varying aspects of the ocean beat-
ing upon beach and rock, won high praise and eventually
earned for him the gold medal of the Pennsylvania
Academy of Fine Arts. His wife, Anna Matlock, whom
he married in 1856 when some twenty-odd years old,
was like her husband, a woman of artistic talent, though
in her case it showed itself in the publication of verse.
Of their six children, one of whom, Herbert Maule, is
to-day a professor of botany at Barnard College, and
two others, Mrs. Eleanor French Price and Mrs. Wm.
Tenney Brewster are painters, we are particularly inter-
ested in the fourth, Theodore William, who was born in
the house of his grandfather, Dr. Charles F. Matlock,
hi Germantown, Philadelphia, on Jan. 31, 1868.

The family were in very comfortable circumstances.
In addition to their home in Germantown they had a
summer one in Newport, and occasionally they would
forsake both for extensive travels in Europe.

The poor schools in Pennsylvania at that time, as well
as the uncertainty of the family's stay at any one place
for any length of tune, made it necessary for the children
to receive privately their most elementary education.
For this task Mrs. Richards was eminently well fitted.
Young Theodore gradually passed from " Alice " to
history and languages, and with little effort quickly over-
took his playmates who attended school.

59

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

Naturally the boy's first desire was to become an
artist. Was not his father the greatest of men, and
could a son of his do less than follow in his footsteps?
Filial reverence lost none of its force with time, but a
desire to paint, slowly and quite unconsciously, gave place
to a desire to become a scientist. This showed itself
even before he was thirteen.

The query naturally suggests itself, what started him
on this track? His mother and father, aside from art,
were very much interested hi Tennyson and Browning,
and literature hi general. An intimate friend of the
family's was Frank R. Stockton, the author. From none
of these three could Theodore have obtained much sci-
entific inspiration.

There remained then his grandfather, the doctor, and
still another close friend of the family's — Josiah Parsons
Cooke, Professor of Chemistry at Harvard. That the
boy got much of his inspiration from this Harvard pro-
fessor seems pretty certain. Even before he entered
Harvard Young Richards had already mastered Cooke's
The New Chemistry, and was quite a match for many
of the students with several years' chemistry to their
credit.

Genius young Richards could well have inherited,
in part at least, from his parents; the bent of this genius
towards science must to a certain extent be credited to
Cooke; but the further quality of taking infinite pains
with details, so essential to every scientist, and one
which Richards possesses in a supreme degree, seems
to have been directly transmitted from father to son.
Note this description of the artist: "He stood for
hours hi the early days of Atlantic City or Cape May
with folded arms, studying the motions of the sea —
until people thought him insane. After days of gazing,
he made pencil notes of the action of the water. He

60

THEODORE WILLIAM RICHARDS

even stood for hours in a bathing suit among the waves,
trying to analyse the motion."

Yet still another inheritance. What soon strikes a
reader hi glancing over Richards' contributions to chem-
istry is the fine unity of purpose which pervades all his
work: a desire to penetrate ever deeper into the myster-
ies of creation. This philosophical bent may be traced
to his mother, whose verses abound with fine feeling
and deep thought.

Richards, barely fifteen, entered Haverford College,
Pennsylvania, with this advice from his mother in his
pocket:

Fear not to go where fearless Science leads,
Who holds the keys of God.

At Haverford, aided by a retentive memory and a
desire for knowledge, Richards made rapid strides,
particularly in chemistry and astronomy. But he was
not a bookworm ; though somewhat delicate hi physique,
with eyes that needed careful nursing, he took an active
part hi the less strenuous exercises such as lawn tennis,
skating and swimming.

But Cooke was not at Haverford, and Richards wanted
Cooke. He wanted him badly now because he, Richards,
also wanted to be a chemist, and because he, like Cooke,
was particularly interested hi the philosophy of chem-
istry. Then there were other men at Harvard whose
acquaintance Richards was anxious to make. Wolcot
Gibbs, C. L. Jackson, and H. B. Hill were men who
counted hi chemical councils of the day.

Richards, then, wanted to complete his bachelor's
degree at Harvard. The reasons he gave for desiring
to change were quite sufficient for his parents. They
understood and encouraged, as they continued to do
to the end of their days. Their motto from the first was :
give him the best that's in you, but let nature play its

61

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

part; guide much, but force nothing. So Richards set
out for Cambridge, there to join the senior class.

In the following year (1886) Richards splendidly justi-
fied the cherished hopes of his parents by graduating
with summa cum laude and highest honors in chemistry.
There could be no further question as to his future.
He had made a brilliant start in chemistry, and chemistry
it was to be.

When one considers the extent to which research in
America is carried to-day it comes as a surprise to learn
that even as late as 1880 very few research investigators
were to be found at any one of the colleges. At Harvard,
for example, although the Erving Professorship of
Chemistry had been founded as early as 1792, Josiah
Parsons Cooke (1827-94) was the first occupant of the
chair to take any real interest in investigations. These
led to problems dealing with the combining proportions
of elements to form compounds.

Combining proportions of elements is glibly enough
discussed by every high school boy, but Cooke could
penetrate much below the surface of things, and Cooke
led his students on his own philosophic path. Needless
to add, Richards was one of the enthusiastic followers.

Under Cooke's guidance Richards began an investi-
gation of the atomic weight of oxygen. [See the
article on Mendeleeff for the meaning of atomic
weights.j

Richards soon showed that the accepted atomic weight
for oxygen was too high. But more than that: the
method of procedure had elements of novelty, and the
extraordinary care taken to avoid errors in manipulation
centred attention upon the work.

The use of copper oxide in the determination of the
atomic weight of oxygen made it most desirable to be
certain of the purity of this substance. Its somewhat

62

THEODORE WILLIAM RICHARDS

anomalous behavior led the young investigator to ques-
tion the accuracy of the accepted atomic weight of
copper, and by a careful investigation of the matter, in
the course of which he showed that the copper oxide
which previous investigators had used contained nitrogen
as an impurity, Richards came to the conclusion that
the atomic weight of copper as given by other investi-
gators was too high. The differences to be sure were
fractions of one percent, but they were entirely beyond
all possibilities of experimental error.

These two researches were conducted before Richards
reached his twentieth year. Two results immediately
followed therefrom: the boy Richards had become a
force to be reckoned with, and he had discovered just
that particular department of the science for which he
was best fitted.

In 1888, at the age of twenty, Richards received his
Ph.D. " Before this, the greatest wish of my life had
begun to develop — namely, an intense desire to know
something more definite about the material and ener-
getic structure of the universe hi which our lot is cast.
Advancement in academic position, although prized
because necessary in order that a normal life should be
possible, was subordinate to this great interest. At first
perhaps my desire began as a feeling little above mere
curiosity, but by degrees I realized that gain in knowledge
would mean for humanity gain in power, which I thought
of primarily as gain in power for good. By instinct and
education, although not by formal connection, I was of
the Society of Friends (or Quakers), in whose minds
peace and goodwill to men were foremost; and I dwelt
little upon the sinister uses to which the increased power
found by science could be put. ... It is not the fault
of science if mankind is so little civilized as to misuse its
great potential benefits. ..."
6 63

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

" The atomic weights seem to be among the primal
mysteries of the universe. They are values which no
man by taking thought can change; they seem to be
independent of place and time. They are silent wit-
nesses of the very beginnings of things, and their half-
hidden, half-disclosed numerical relations, in connection
with the undoubted similarities in chemical properties
of certain groups of elements, only increase one's
curiosity concerning them. . . ."

We see here clearly enough that even thus early in life
atomic weight determinations to Richards were a means
and not an end. To get finally at fundamentals required in
the meantime years of patient labor, ingenuity and skill.

Richards, of course, was not the pioneer in atomic
weight determinations. From the time of Dalton more
than one hundred years ago, many workers had pointed
out their significance. Prominent among these were
Avogadro and Cannizzaro, two Italian scientists; Ber-
zelius, a Swede; and Stas a Belgian. The classi-
fication of the elements based on their atomic weights
resulted in MendeleefFs Periodic Law, which in turn
gave rise to much further experimental work to explain
apparent inconsistencies in the then accepted atomic
weights. Mendeleeff's Law also offered food for much
reflection. Why could the weights of the elements be
so arranged as to exhibit at a glance the close chemical
and physical relationship of many of them? Was this
relation due to their origin from some parent substance?

Reflections such as these led Richards to the view
that an answer to such a question could be obtained only
by a much more careful examination of properties of the
elements, and among these, atomic weight stood first
on the list.1

1 Recently (1913-1914) Mosely, an English physicist, by studying
the high-frequency spectra emitted by different elements when used

64

THEODORE WILLIAM RICHARDS

The great promise he had shown, and the hearty sup-
port which he received from Cooke, enabled Richards to
secure one of those valuable Harvard Travelling Fellow-
ships, and during 1888-89 he spent much of the time at
Gottingen, where he became acquainted with Victor
Meyer and his vapor density method, Walter Hempel
and his gas manipulations, and worked directly with
Paul Jannasch on the estimation of oil of vitriol in the
presence of iron. On his way home he stayed in England
long enough to form friendships which were to prove
life-long.

What Richards got from his travels abroad is much
what the young graduate gets by attending large sci-
entific gatherings; he saw in flesh and blood men whose
fame had reached him, he was introduced to some of
them, and caught their enthusiasm and lofty vision.

On his return to Harvard Richards was appointed to
an assistantship, and two years later he became an in-
structor. Needless to add, the interrupted work on

as targets in an X-ray bulb, has shown " that there is in the atom
a fundamental quantity, which increases by regular steps as we
pass from one element to the next. This quantity can only be the
charge on the central positive nucleus." — Mosely, quoted by Lowry,
Historical Introduction to Chemistry, p. 493, 1915. (See also the
article on Madame Curie.) Mosely's " quantities," the " atomic
numbers," are the source of much scientific activity at present.
Of Mosely, the author of these "atomic numbers," who was
killed in the Great War, Prof. R. A. Millikan, the distinguished
physicist of the University of Chicago, has this to say: " In a re-
search which is destined to rank as one of the dozen most brilliant
in conception, skilful in execution, and illuminating in results in
the history of science, a young man but twenty-six years old threw
open the windows through which we can now glimpse the subatomic
world with a definiteness and certainty never even dreamt of before.
Had the European war had no other result than the snuffing out
of this young life, that alone would make it one of the most hideous
and most irreparable crimes in history."

65

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

atomic weights was resumed with vigor. Some finish-
ing touches which he gave to his copper work, hi the
course of which barium in the shape of one of its salts had
to be used, pointed to the next line of attack. His
results led him to the view that the atomic weight of
barium was even less well known than that of copper
had been.

We see that the elements were never selected at
random, but like most careful and thoughtful work, one
experiment led to another, and each succeeding experi-
ment showed elaborate improvements over its prede-
cessor. Thus in this barium determination Richards
first carefully chose a compound of the element which
could be easily prepared in the pure state, which could
be dried without decomposition, and which could be
readily analysed. The compound once selected, it was
now prepared in no less than seven different ways, and
each one was found to have the same composition. Such
was the accuracy of the procedure that two of the results
for the atomic weight of barium differed by no more than
one six-thousandth of an ounce, and these were shown
to vary markedly with the value then in vogue.

The errors which other experimenters had fallen into
with their barium determinations made it more than
probable that those errors had been repeated with
strontium, an element chemically very closely allied to
barium. Such, indeed, proved the case; and here, as
before, new figures were given and the old errors ex-
plained.

In this strontium experiment Richards set a record
for exact methods of procedure which have never been
surpassed, and which formed the basis for most of his
subsequent work on atomic weights. Here, also, by
the introduction of his bottling device, which gave assur-
ance that purified materials could be kept uncontami-

66

THEODORE WILLIAM RICHARDS

nated with any moisture, and the use of the nephelo-
meter, which detected minute traces of suspended
material, "two errors were obviated . . . which have
perhaps ruined more previous investigations than any
other two causes. . . ."

The standards which Richards has set for his work
are summed up in this remark of his: "Every sub-
stance must be assumed to be impure, every reaction
must be assumed to be incomplete, every measurement
must be assumed to contain error, until proof to the
contrary can be obtained."

Such merit could not go unrewarded; in 1894 Rich-
ards was promoted to an assistant professorship. In
the following year the fame of Ostwald's school at
Leipzig, and the desire to become more proficient in
physical chemistry, a science which he clearly foresaw
he would use extensively, led him once again to Ger-
many, and here he remained for a semester. Not long
after his return Richards married Miss Miriam Stuart
Thayer, the daughter of Professor J. H. Thayer, the
New Testament scholar. They have a daughter and
two sons.

Fame Richards had already attained, but there was
a danger in another direction. Aside from his salary,
Richards had nothing, and the salary was too small for a
man with family. Passionately interested as he was in
research, Richards realized only too clearly that it was
mot a " money-getting-employment." " Money-get-
ting " meant weary hours of labor, and such occupation
could hardly be engaged in, side by side with research,
without impairing either the one, or the other, or, what
is worse, one's health. At this critical hour the father
istepped in:

" My father . . . advised me to devote myself . . .
to research ... he supported this advice in a very

67

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

practical way and offered ... to help me, out of his
none too plentiful means, in case of a pinch, rather
than permit me to engage in the distracting task of
making money by occupations outside of my main
interest. Later, after my marriage in 1896, when new
cares presented themselves, and when he saw that there
was danger of my overworking, he placed into my hands
a sum of money large enough to enable me to feel that
I could take a year's rest from academic work, if that
should prove necessary. The relief from worry, afforded
by this sum hi a savings bank, made the vacation
unnecessary."

" There is no question that this generous and thought-
ful confidence was a very important factor in the success
of a not very optimistic and somewhat delicate young
man, then entirely without any capital except his brains;
and it would be impossible to exaggerate my feeling of
gratitude. My wife also heartily sympathised with my
desire to conduct investigation, and did all in her power
to encourage the work."

Encouraged in this way, Richards threw himself into
his work with a wholeheartedness and enthusiasm which
knew no bounds. Step by step, with one research
giving rise to another, he redetermined the atomic
weights of such elements as zinc, magnesium, nickel,
cobalt, iron, silver, carbon, nitrogen, etc., and in each
case the figures he obtained showed differences with
those obtained by other workers, many of whom were
masters in the field. These differences were shown to
be the necessary result of various inaccuracies which
other men had fallen into, — inaccuracies, in many cases,
due to a lack of knowledge of certain very necessary
physico-chemical principles. As showing the uniform
excellency of Richards' work it may be pointed out that
in every instance the consensus of scientific opinion has

68

THEODORE WILLIAM RICHARDS

been overwhelmingly in favor of his results. " One's
confidence in the work," writes Richards, " cannot but
be increased by the fact that in spite of the many years
which have passed since some of the work was done
[this was written in 1910], not one of these values has
been shown to be seriously in error, and in every case
the Harvard value has been accepted by the International
Committee on Atomic Weights and by the world at large
as more accurate than previous work of others."

Much of his earlier work appeared in the Proceedings
of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, but
with the growth of the American Chemical Society, and
the consequent growth of its Journal, many of the more
recent papers have found their way into this Journal.
Some have been reprinted by the Carnegie Institution
of Washington, an organisation which, by its financial
assistance, has made much of the work possible. A
volume embracing all of Richards' papers up to 1909 was
published in German under the title, Untersuchungen
iiber Atomgewichte.

The extent of these researches has necessitated the
assistance of many students. These flocked to Harvard
in large numbers. As early as 1895, when Richards was
but 27, students began to work under his direction, and
their number has steadily grown until to-day there is quite
a little army of them. Some of them, such as G. N. Lewis,
L. J. Henderson, Grinnel Jones, Baxter and Cushman,
are already among the very best chemists of America.

In 1901 Richards was appointed to a full professorship
at Harvard. This came after his declination of an offer
from the authorities at the University of Gb'ttingen,
Germany, which showed how far his fame even then had
travelled. Two years later he was made chairman of the
department, and in 1907, in fulfilment of arrangements
which had been entered into between Harvard and the

69

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

German Government, Richard was selected as Exchange
Professor at Berlin University for that current year, and
during his brief stay there he introduced some of his
classical experimental methods into German laboritories.

Before his departure from Berlin, Richards delivered
an address to the members of the German Chemical
Society. From a description in the Chemiker-Zeitung
we gather that the big amphitheatre in the Hofmannhaus
(the headquarters of the Society) was filled to over-
flowing, " scholars from every part of the country being
attracted." Among the audience were such well-
known chemists and physicists as Graebe (the president),
Emil Fischer, Landolt, Nernst, Lampe, Brauner, Lieber-
mann, Buchner, Planck, Pinner, Ladenburg, Gabriel,
Witt, Bernthsen, Warburg and Biltz. Richards' address,
dealing with his later researches on atomic weights, was
received with much enthusiasm (" Der Vortrag wurde
mit ausserordentlichem Beifall aufgennomen "), and
the president in his comments, declared that the two
foremost authorities on atomic weights in the last
hundred years, Berzelius and Stas, now gave way to
Richards. " The light, which before radiated from
Europe to America, is now brilliantly reflected back
again."

It has been emphasised that Richards' atomic weight
determinations were merely a means, and that the end
in view was a deeper knowledge of fundamentals. This
led him to investigate other properties of the elements
besides weight, such as compressibility, melting point,
etc. The development of a theory which assumed that
atoms, and not merely the spaces between them, are
compressible has borne wonderful fruit, and has splen-
didly correlated many properties of matter. " In
developing this theory, I endeavoured always to avoid
confounding hypothetical inferences with reality, trying

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to follow in the footsteps of Michael Faraday, who always
distinguished between the dreams and the facts." How
well various properties of elements are correlated is
graphically represented on the opposite page, the curves
being a reproduction from one of Richards' most recent
papers.

Even a casual glance at these curves will answer the
few critics, quite ill-informed as to the nature of the
work, who, though readily admitting Richards' extra-
ordinary skill in technique, claim that it shows no striking
originality. We have heard similar remarks made of
Richards' illustrious co-worker at the Harvard Medical
School, Otto Folin. Folin has devoted much of his time
to the improvement of the quantitative methods em-
ployed in urine, and later, in blood analysis. Aside from
having shown how unsatisfactory many of the quanti-
tative methods previously used are, and, as a conse-
quence, how worthless are all the conclusions of a chemi-
cal nature drawn from them, Folin has been led, among
other things, to his beautiful theory of protein meta-
bolism, which is the very cornerstone of clinical teaching
to-day. Folin's improvement of quantitative methods
had all these possibilities in mind.

Precisely the same is true of Richards' improvements
of atomic weight determinations. Quantity, through
Lavoisier, laid the basis of our modern science of chem-
istry, and the greater the refinements in quantitative
methods the greater the progress. In Richards we
have not only a master of quantitative manipulation, but a
master interpreter of these procedures, and it is the com-
bination which makes him a great master in our field.2

2 As showing how quite unexpected practical applications may
result from work of scientific interest only, the following may be
cited: copper ore is purchased upon a metal value, established by
chemical analysis, a value based upon the weight of copper atoms

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

In 191 1 Richards was presented with the Faraday
Medal of the English Chemical Society, and on this
occasion delivered an address The Fundamental
Properties of the Elements, which is one of the most
stimulating the present writer has ever read. Of the
impression it made on its hearers, Prof. Dixon's opinion
may be quoted :3 " We have listened to-night to a
story that is more entrancing than any fairy tale, because
as we followed the flight of the lecturer's imagination,
we knew that that flight was surely guided and controlled
by a man who has measured and weighed the elements
with an accuracy hitherto unknown. Concerning the
weights of the element, our old European ideas of
finality have been overthrown by Professor Richards
and his school, and we are at this moment seeing the
fulfilment of the prophecy of Canning when he said,
* I look to the new world to redress the balance of the
old."*

The following year Richards was appointed to the
Erving Professorship of Chemistry and made Director
of the Wolcott Gibbs Memorial Laboratory, a post which
he still holds.

This Wolcott Gibbs Laboratory, which was completed
in 1913, and which is devoted exclusively to research hi
physical and inorganic chemistry, was named after one
of Harvard's professors of chemistry. Its erection was
made possible through the generosity of the late Pro-
fessor Morris Loeb, himself a pupil of Wolcott Gibbs.

in the ore. Until the Harvard experimental results were announced
this atomic weight was represented as 63.2; whereas the experi-
ments showed the figure to be 63.6. Evidently this difference of
two-fifths of one percent means an increase in value to the seller
of about $4,000 on one million dollars' worth of ore.

8 Dixon is professor of chemistry at the University of Manchester,
and one of the past presidents of the English Chemical Society.

72

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31

THEODORE WILLIAM RICHARDS

For the type of work in which Richards is engaged the
Gibbs Laboratory is probably the best equipped in the
world.

The building has six floors available for work: three
regular stories, a very light and convenient basement,
a sub-basement for especially constant temperature work
entirely underground, and a practicable roof. It con-
tains no lecture rooms but is divided into many rooms
of small sizes, the majority of them intended for one or
two investigators. Balance rooms,4 dark rooms, rooms
designed for chemical and physical laboratories (because
much of the work lies on the border-line of physics and
chemistry), and other prerequisites for accurate ex-
perimentation, abound. Pipes are laid for hot and cold
water, distilled water, steam, compressed air, oxygen,
and vacuum, as well as for gas ; and electricity of many
voltages is available at suitable plugs throughout. An
automatic electric lift is used for transferring the appa-
ratus, and telephones connect all the important rooms.

Hollow bricks and doubly glazed windows with tight
weather-strips protect the building from heat and cold,
and the temperature of almost every room is auto-
matically regulated. The ventillating plant provides
filtered air, hence the building is extraordinarily free
from dust throughout.

But we have yet to tell of Richards* greatest triumph,
a direct result of his atomic weight determinations.
In the spring of 1914 Richards startled the scientific world

4 The balances weigh accurately one forty-millionth part of an
ounce. With their aid it is possible to weigh a short light mark
made by a lead pencil. The material is weighed in a platinum
receptacle which is carefully regulated to the temperature of the
rest of the balance, otherwise an ascending current of air would be
generated if the crucible were even slightly wanner, making it
lighter on the balance. The balance is confined in a glass case
containing dried air.

73

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

by his announcement that lead obtained from radio-
active minerals has a lower atomic weight than the lead
obtained from any other source.

A little reflection is needed to appreciate the full sig-
nificance of this statement. Until then no case of vari-
ation hi the atomic weight of an element had ever been
shown. Copper, silver, iron, etc., had been obtained
from various ores in different parts of the world, and
many thousands of analyses had been run by many
hundreds of investigators everywhere, yet the atomic
weight of each element remained a fixed number.
Wherever variations arose, these were invariably traced
to inaccuracies in experimentation; and indeed a fixed
tenet hi the faith of every chemist became that the atomic
weights of the elements are unalterable.

But radioactivity came to shake this faith, as it has
shaken the faith of so many other scientific beliefs.
Who was to settle such a question if not the master of
atomic weight determinations? Ramsay and Soddy in
England, and Fajans and Bredig in Germany, urged
Richards to undertake this work. Fajans sent his
assistant, Max Lembert, with several valuable samples
of radio-active ores containing lead, to assist in the
research.

Radioactive ores from Ceylon, from Colorado, from
England, from Bohemia, from Norway, were carefully
purified, and the atomic weight of the lead present deter-
mined with all the extraordinary refinements that his
brother workers expected of Richards. The mean of
many results gave the value of 206.6 for the atomic weight
of radioactive lead, as compared to 207.2 for common
lead — a difference small enough, but altogether beyond
any experimental error. The most amazing feature of
the whole situation was that, outside of this difference in
atomic weight, and, therefore, density, the two varieties

74

THEODORE WILLIAM RICHARDS

of lead were exactly the same in all respects, physically
and chemically.

"Now Rutherford and Soddy had worked out a theory
of radioactive disintegration by which, starting with
uranium, that element broke down in stages into a
number of other elements, the last of which was lead.
From this hypothesis the theoretical atomic weight for
lead could be deduced. This was found to be 206.07.
Richards' experimental figure was 206.08, — a difference
then of one one-hundredth, and a percentage difference
of about one two-thousandth. Never in the history of
science was there a more complete agreement between
theory and fact.

This had its award in the Nobel Prize which came to
him in that year (1914). In 1916 Richards was awarded
the Franklin Medal of the Franklin Institute, Phila-
delphia, founded for the recognition of those workers in
physical science or technology, without regard to country,
whose efforts, in the opinion of the Institute, have done
most to advance a knowledge of physical science or its
applications.

In addition to these awards, Richards has been the
recipient of many other honors. At various tunes differ-
ent universities — Yale, Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford,
Manchester, Prag, Christiania, Haverford, Pittsburgh,
Clark and Berlin — have granted him honorary degrees.
In 1910, the London Royal Society bestowed its Davy
Medal upon him, and in 1912 he received the Willard
Gibbs Medal of the American Chemical Society. He
has been twice elected to the presidency of the Ameri-
can Chemical Society. In 1917 he was elected President
of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science for that year. Recently (May, 1919) he was
nominated for the presidency of the American Academy

75

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

of Arts and Sciences. He is a member of most of the
scientific organisations of Europe and America.

Here is a reporter's description of the man and his
surroundings: " You find the offices of the director on
the second floor. Presently the door of the inner room
opens and you hear the conclusion of a little conference.
. . . There are some remarks about * the determination
of Q and the elimination of that error,1 and then you
are invited into the private apartment of Professor
Theodore William Richards. . . ."

"The room is large and cheerful and the visitor is
slightly surprised to note that it contains few tokens of
the laboratory work to which the building is dedicated.
. . . The eye catches at once an artistic portrait upon
the wall of a chemist at work with his retorts and tubes,
and inquiry secures the information that this is a photo-
graph of a Burne-Jones painting of [the late] Lord
Raleigh, the Chancellor of Cambridge University [and
the renowned physicist]. Above the mantle stands a
portrait of Michael Faraday.

"The visitor expresses some surprise as he notes
also that several water-color drawings adorn the room.
' Is there any reason why such a room should be devoid
of beauty? ' asks the Director, and later you learn that
Prof. Richards himself likes to sketch. . . . Two of the
water colors are the work of his father, one a scene at
Monhegan, the other a view of rocks, shale and waves at
Newport.

" Meantime you have been studying the man himself.
He is of medium height, sturdily made, with grey hair,
eyes that look keenly through his glasses, and a genial
manner. His face is oval, the smile comes readily —
he confesses to a feeling of humor, as might be surmised
from the twinkle that frequently is caught lurking in his
eyes — and the movements are quick and definite. The

76

THEODORE WILLIAM RICHARDS

general impression is that of a business man with many
affairs pressing upon his attention rather than that
fancy which most persons have of a chemist working
with minute and patient care upon some scientific
problem."

And now let Prof. Richards act as autobiographer:
" Although I have been able to accomplish only a very
small part of that which has been planned, the work has
interested the chemical world beyond all expectation;
indeed the possibility of much outside interest had not
been anticipated. . . . The splendid Nobel Prize (which
has grown to be world-renowned above all other forms
of recognition, not only because of its magnificence
[some $40,000 go with it] but also because of the list
of great men whose names grace its earlier records),
gave pleasure which it is impossible to exaggerate.

" The award will be a lively inspiration to try to do
better work in the future, and, moreover, its provisions
will help to smooth the way toward more accomplish-
ment, both by providing help for the present, and by
relieving worry for the years to come.

" All those marks of kindness and generosity on the
part of one's friends and colleagues bring great satis-
faction and happiness; but they cause also a sense of
humility and responsibility. One cannot help wishing
that one's incomplete attainments, so richly rewarded,
came nearer to the ideal; and one cannot help feeling
that he must strive doubly hard in the future to be worthy
of having received such great tokens of confidence and
honor."

Richards, together with his students, has thus far
published some 200 papers — the results of research.
Many of them have become classics in our science. Yet
Richards is very little over fifty to-day. What may we
not expect in the years to come !
7 77

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

References

Part of the information comes from private sources.
Morris's life of Richards' father (i) gives us a picture of
the family. Richards himself is responsible for a delight-
ful autobiographical sketch of his early days, prepared
at the request of the editor of the Swedish Vecko-
Journalen (2). An unusually well-informed newspaper
account of Prof. Richards and his work appeared in the
Boston Sunday Herald in 1915 (3). A description of the
Wolcott Gibbs Memorial Laboratory appeared in the
Harvard Alumni Bulletin for 1913 (4). Excellent sum-
maries of Prof. Richards' work may be found in Science
for 1915 (5), 1916 (6) and 1919 (7), and in the English
Chemical Journal (8),

1. H. S. Morris: William T. Richards. A Brief Outline of his

Life and Art (J. B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia, 1912).

2. T. W. Richards: Retrospect. Vecko Journalen (Stockholm),

Feb. 20, 1916.

3. Aonn.: Professor Richards Wins Nobel Prize. The Sunday

Herald (Boston), Nov. 21, 1915.

4. T. W. Richards: The Wolcott Gibbs Memorial Laboratory.

Harvard Alumni Bulletin, March 26, 1913.

5. T. W. Richards: Recent Researches in the Wolcott Gibbs

Memorial Laboratory of Harvard University. Science , Dec.

6. T. W. Richards: Ideals of Chemical Investigation. Science,

July 14, 1916.

7. T. W. Richards: The Problem of Radioactive Lead. Science,

Jan. 3, 1919.

8. T. W. Richards: The Fundamental Properties of the Elements

(Faraday Lecture). Journal of the Chemical Society (Lon-
don), 97, 1201 (1911).

JACOBUS HENRICUS VAN'T HOFF

[OU have two substances: they both have the
same atoms, the same number of atoms, in
the same proportion by weight. So far as
you can make out, they both have the same
structural formula. Yet they show decided differences
in properties. They have different crystalline struc-
tures and different optical properties, for example.
What are we to make of this?

Such was Pasteur's problem with his famous tartaric
acids. Such was Wislicenus's difficulty with his lactic
acids. Structural formulas, as written on paper — hi
two dimensions therefore — failed utterly to show any
differences in these compounds.

Now, of course, it did not require any very keen
insight on the part of Pasteur, Wislicenus, and others,
to realise that real molecules occupy not two but three
dimensions, and that at best, paper formulas were a use-
ful, but not a real mode of representation. Were the
differences in these compounds to be ascribed to differ-
ences in the internal structure of the molecule, and if
so, was there any possible method of showing this?

The twenty-two-year-old van't Hoff, already dissatis-
fied with these paper pictures, and pondering over the
more profound question as to the possible way in which
the atoms themselves are held together in the molecule,
introduced the conception of molecular structure based
on the tetrahedron, and with it gave an impetus to the
development of organic chemistry which is felt with
added force from day to day. One need but mention
the carbohydrates and proteins to realise how much we

79

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

owe the knowledge of the chemistry of these substances
to van't Hoff's new branch of the science — stereo-
chemistry.1

But stereochemistry was simply a branch development,
as it were, of the main inquiry which van't Hoff set about
to solve: the kinetics of chemical action. In any
chemical reaction we see the beginning, and we see the
end of the reaction — we seem to know little or nothing of
the steps in between. What may they be, and if so,
what laws govern them? What of the velocity of chemi-
cal reactions and of the various phases of chemical
equilibrium?

These reflections gave rise to one of the most remark-
able books in the whole realm of chemistry — van't Hoff's
Chemical Dynamics, in which the application of pure
mathematics to chemistry finds one of its first and clear-
est expressions.

And this study culminated in one of the great general-
isations in the science — the analogy between substances
in solution and those in a gaseous form.

Van't Hof, Vant hof, Vant hoff, vant hof, van't Hof,
van't Hoff — so run the pleasant little variations in name
from 1600 on. In the middle of the nineteenth century a
worthy scion of this well-known Dutch family, accom-
panied by his young wife, transferred his medical prac-
tise from the little town of Sommelsdijk to the flourishing
city of Rotterdam, and in August, 1852, Alida Jacoba
van't Hoff gave birth to Jacobus Henricus, Jr., destined
to become the master chemical thinker of our generation.

Henry's early days alternated between attendance at
Kindergarden and pleasant vacations spent with his
grandparents at Middleharnis, made famous by Hob-

1 The Frenchman Le Bel, quite independently, and only a month
or two after van't Hoff's article appeared in print, advanced prac-
tically the same stereometric conception.

80

JACOBUS HENRICUS VAN'T HOFF

beam's picture of the place. The kindergarten was
followed by the elementary school, and this in turn by
the " Hoogere Burgerschool," where Henry achieved a
reputation for scholarship, for speculation and for day-
dreaming.

At the secondary school van't Hoff first received in-
struction in chemistry, and as with many another be-
ginner, the excitement of cutting and bending glass,
preparing, collecting and examining gases, and possible
explosions of all kinds, led the youngster to repeat and
extend many of the " stunts " at home. The parents
and friends were not exactly invited to these exhibitions,
for the practical young Dutchman declared that rich
feasts should be paid for! And paid for they were.
With the money collected, more apparatus was bought,
and more bombing expeditions were undertaken.

In 1869, at the age of 17, he matriculated at Leyden
University, with the following result: mathematics and
mechanics, excellent; physical sciences, very good;
history, civics and economics, good; languages and
literature, fan*; drawing, fair — altogether not a bad
comparative estimate of his knowledge in later
years.

But what was he to do now? His own tastes led him
to entomology and to literature, neither of which seemed
practical enough, however, to the young Dutchman.
; After much family discussion it was decided that Henry
proceed immediately to the Delft Polytechnic school,
there to equip himself as an engineer. Once a success-
ful engineer and a local celebrity it would be easy to re-
turn to his first loves.

To Delft went young Henry, then, and with a deter-
mination to do or die, he at once plunged into the work
before him. For the next two years he knew little of
companionship and outside pleasures. The work for

81

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

the greater part was distinctly a " grind." He gradu-
ated in 1871.

In the meantime two things had happened which made
him question the desirability of pursuing a technical
career. He had spent one of his vacations working in a
sugar factory, and found much of this work distinctly
monotonous. Was this to be his life work? The
thought made him shudder a little.

And there was still another factor. Oudeman's chem-
istry lectures had made a very deep impression on him.
Oudeman was an excellent speculator in his subject, and
as we can now readily understand, such a man was
precisely the kind of inspiration van't Hoff needed.

After finishing his course at Delft, Henry pursuaded
his parents to allow him to continue his studies at
Leyden, with the particular object of rounding out his
mathematical knowledge. He had now quite decided
to become a chemist. What, then, had mathematics
to do with it — mathematics, to prepare for a chemical
career in the seventies? At this point one does not
know whom to credit more with the instinct of prophecy:
his teacher Oudeman, or Henry himself. Of this we
are certain: that even at this early age van't Hoff was
quite dissatisfied with the purely descriptive state of
chemical knowledge. To be encyclopedic only might be
bookwormish, but surely not scientific.

At the end of a year Leyden grew monotonous. He
had gained some mathematics, but little chemistry. To
Bonn, then, where reigned the illustrious Kekule, the
founder of the theory of the benzene ring, and the
speculator of his day.

" In Leyden everything was prose — the surroundings,
the city, the people. In Bonn all was poetry." So
wrote van't Hoff many years later. Was this due to
Kekule's influence? To some extent, no doubt. But

82

JACOBUS HENRICUS VAN'T HOFF

there were other factors. Perhaps a closer examination
of the man will enlighten us.

Van't Hoff, to be sure, had always been extremely
industrious, and had had little leisure — or inclination,
for that matter — to romp with acquaintances; but
the time that he did have was largely passed in a world
within. He speculated, he dreamt, he romaniticised.
Comptes and Whewall and Taine gave him basis for
speculation, and Burns, Heine and, above all, Byron,
for his romanticism. To the end of his day Byron re-
mained his god, and much of van't Hoff' s early life and
thought were modelled after that of the poet. Had not
Byron declared that Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy
was one of the most instructive books that had ever been
written? Forthwith does van't Hoff plunge into Burton,
with results that are obvious during his student days at
least. Does not Byron tell us that Napoleon is the first
man in Europe? So says van't Hoff.

" This much is certain," writes he ; "if Byron had
not had a dog, I would not have had one, and if Alcibiades
had not had one, neither of us would have been posses-
sors of one. But what if Byron had possessed a don-
key? ...»

Such was Byron's influence that at moments when the
differential and integral calculus were not absorbing him
and the inner self became dominant, the scientist often
aspired to become a poet. But if a poet, it must be,
in spirit and expression, as a humble follower of the
great master. So we find that at Bonn, when one day,
coming into the laboratory, he heard the awful news of
the suicide of a fair fellow-worker, he rushed to his
study and penned the following:

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

Elegy on the Death of a Lady Student at Bonn

Thy day is done, young champion of the free !

Thy glory and thy suffering are past,

As a weak beauteous flower's, where no tree

Can shelter it from cruel Autumn's blast;

Which dies in silence lovely to the last;

Gone as a day in spring, gone as the dream

Of one that wakes no more ; and must it be

That thoughtful loneliness passes unseen,

Oh! shall thy hapless lot be lost in Lethe's stream!

This is not Byron, and yet not so bad for a young
chemist, writing in a language not his own.

Fortunately for our science, van't Hoff did not receive
much encouragement from a fellow poet, and once again
he turned his eyes to chemistry and Bonn and Kekule.

Here for the first time van't Hoff came into a new
world. A celebrated university, situated where there
were

A blending of all beauties; streams and dells,
Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, mountain, vine,
And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells
From gay but leafy walls, where Ruin greenly dwells,

with students from every corner of the globe, and with
a life so utterly at variance with his experiences hitherto,
what wonder that his sensitive nature was filled with
love and poetry for the place? " The laboratory is a
temple!" writes he to his father; "... and in the
lecture room there are to be seen daily about a hundred
of our most promising young men, gathered from ten
different states, to hear and to see Kekule, whose fame
has spread itself over half the world."

In the laboratory van't Hoff worked with twelve others
at research in organic chemistry, and came into immedi-
ate contact with the assistant, Wallach, whose work on
the terpenes and camphor was to become epoch-making.

84

JACOBUS HENRICUS VAN'T HOFF

Having finished a rather routine piece of work on the
synthesis of propionic acid, and having, by the end of
about two years, largely outlived his enthusiasm for
Bonn, van't Hoff turned his wandering gaze toward Paris.

Outside of his wanderlust, just what his object was in
going to Paris to study under Wurtz, is not clear. He
seems to have done little laboratory work there, but his
mind was full of speculations of all sorts, particularly
of one which was to find expression shortly. " D
etait si tranquille qu'on ne faisait pas grande attention a
lui." Such was the opinion of his fellow-students,
including Le Bel, through whose head were running
ideas very similar to those of van't Hoff's; yet not a
word was interchanged between the two regarding their
speculations!

In the summer of 1874, after a six months' stay in
Paris, he returned to Utrecht to complete his doctor's
requirements. This degree he attained in December of
the same year for another routine research on cyanacetic
and malonic acids, and yet four months before he had
published an eleven-page pamphlet on The Structure
of the Atoms in Space, which was to give him an inter-
national reputation!

Van't Hoff's practical common sense — a nationalistic
trait, one might add — is nowhere seen to better advan-
tage. He might have offered his eleven-page pamphlet
for a dissertation, but the probabilities of its acceptance
would have been extremely small. Revolutionary ideas
are not, as a rule, welcomed in dissertations, and if
incorporated, may be thrown out, with such comments
as " vague," " fanciful," " unscientific."

To explain cases of isomerism which structural formu-
las failed to solve, van't Hoff introduced the idea that
in such molecules the carbon atom is at the center of a
tetrahedran, with its four lines, representing its tetra-

85

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

valency, radiating towards the four points of the tetra-
hedran, all four equidistinct from the central carbon
point. If at these ends we have four different atoms or
groups, we can have at least two such compounds, one
the image of the other, and not superpo sable.

At first this pamphlet made no impression. It was
written in Dutch, which meant at best but a local audi-
ence, and it dealt with such novel ideas that most of the
scientists of his own land would have dismissed it as a
piece of wild imagination, particularly since its author
was entirely unknown.

To give it a wider circulation van't Hoff translated his
work into French under the title of La Chimie dans
Vespace. This was all the more necessary since Le Bel,
in November, 1874 — that *s> some two months after
van't Hoff's publication — read a paper before the French
chemical society, containing much the same views. It
cannot be emphasised too strongly at this point that the
two had come to practically the same conclusion quite
independently of one another. As has happened before,
and since that period, the tune was ripe for some such
discovery.

Over a year passed and nothing happened. Then
came from Johannes Wislicenus, already a mighty force
in organic chemistry, a letter which is as complimentary
to the writer's extraordinary perpicacity as it is of the
talent to the man addressed. " Let me tell you," he
writes, " that your theoretical development [of the
subject] has given me much satisfaction. I see in it
not only an exceptionally talented attempt at explaining
hitherto insoluble problems, but something which will
give a wholly new impetus to our subject, and will thereby
become epoch-making. . . . In a short time you will see,
I hope, the interest I take in your work by my own re-
searches in the field."

86

JACOBUS HENRICUS VAN»T HOFF

The letter concluded with a request to allow Dr.
Herrmann, one of Wislecenus's assistants, to translate
the work into German, which would then be introduced
to the [German] public by a preface from the pen of
Wislecenus himself.

The translation made its appearance in 1876 under the
title of Die Lagerung der Atome in Raume. Like Byron
after the publication of Childe Harrold, van't Hoff awoke
to find himself famous.

But like Byron, again, his fame brought some bitter
attacks. Of extreme virulence was one from Hermann
Kolbe, the well-known Leipsig professor. " A Dr. van't
Hoff"— so runs the diatribe— "of the Veterinary
College, Utrecht [he had in the meantime been appointed
to an assist ant ship at this place] appears to have no taste
for exact chemical research. He finds it a less arduous
task to amount his Pegasus (evidently borrowed from
the veterinary College) and to soar to his chemical
Parnassus, there to reveal in his La Chimie dans
Vespace how he finds the atoms situated in the world's
space.

" His hallucinations met with but little encourage-
ment from the prosaic chemical public. Dr. F. Hermann,
assistant at the Agricultural Institute of Heidelberg,
therefore undertook to give them further publicity by
means of a German edition. ... It is not possible, even
cursorily, to criticise this paper, since its fanciful non-
sense carefully avoids any basis of fact, and is quite
unintelligible to the calm investigator. ..."

Kolbe goes on to deplore the times. To think that
an unknown chemist should be given a ready ear when
he talks of the most difficult of problems, and particu-
larly when he treats them with such perfect assurance !

As for Wislicenus, who praised it in an introduction —
" Herewith Wislicenus makes it clear that he has gone

87

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

over from the camp of the true investigators to that of the
speculative philosophers of ominous memory, who are
separated by only a thin medium from spiritualism "[!]

If I quote Kolbe's criticism at some length it is only
to show — for the nth tune, no doubt — how very often
some of the most powerful intellects of the day com-
pletely misunderstand the germ of a new idea. And
Kolbe was a most representative scientist of his tune.
Yet to-day there is not an elementary book in organic or
physical chemistry but devotes no inconsiderable portion
of its text to stereochemistry !

During the two critical years of 1874 to 76, that is,
from the tune of the publication of his pamphlet to the
time when the great letter came from the great Wis-
lecenus, van't Hoff spent many an anxious and de-
spondent hour. As with Huxley and crowds of other
despairing young climbers, the Dutchman thought much
of emigrating to a distant land — Australia, perhaps.
This desire was much strengthened by the cold reception
he received from know-it-all school directors to pompous
college professors, whenever he applied for a position.
" He looks rather slovenly. I'm afraid that he'll have
lots of trouble with the students." So runs a repre-
sentative commentary by an important school official.

For the fact that migration did not carry off van't
Hoff to a distant land and to an unknown end we have
his parents to thank. They constantly counselled
patience and persistence. Fortunately, also, these
parents of his were comfortably off, and this avoided
distractions from his goal, which might otherwise have
easily ruined a brilliant career — as it has done in in-
numerable cases.

Patience ! Its first illustration was seen in the f ol-
lowing advertisement which appeared in a Utrecht daily
newspaper:

JACOBUS HENRICUS VAN'T HOFF

"Dr. J. H. van't Hoff (« Technology ') will give
private lessons in chemistry, physics, etc. Address Mrs.
Kortebos, Spoorstrat, C."

The pupils came ever so slowly and time hung ever
so heavily. This was not an unmixed misfortune, for
during his leisure hours further ideas hi organic chem-
istry began to crystallise in his head, with results which
led to another fruitful volume not so very long after-
wards— Views regarding Organic Chemistry.

Things changed at length — probably as a direct result
of Wislicenus's letter. In 1876 he was appointed
assistant at the Veterinary School hi Utrecht, and in the
following year he became lecturer at the University of
Amsterdam.

In the meantime, in spite of Kolbe's criticism, van't
HofPs views on the atoms in space were finding welcome
acceptance throughout Europe. His name was on the
lips of scientific men everywhere, for his theories had
given untold possibilities in the field of experimental
chemistry.

His introductory lecture, Imagination in Science, was
a masterly vindication of his own attitude towards the
subject, and incidentally a splendid answer to Kolbe's
criticism. The gist of it is contained in the conclusion,
quoted from one of his favorite historians, Buckle:
" There is a spiritual, a poetic, and for aught we know a
spontaneous and uncaused element in the human mind,
which ever and anon, suddenly and without warning,
gives us a glimpse and a forecast of the future, and
urges us to seize truth as it were by anticipation."

No wonder, then, that hi 1878, when but 26 years old,
he became the faculty's unanimous choice for the chair
of chemistry (to which, sad to relate, mineralogy and
geology were at first added).

89

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

This was very quickly and very appropriately followed
by van't Hoff's marriage to Johanna Francina Mees,
the daughter of a Rotterdam merchant. Jenny had
been courted from the " Burgerschool " days up.

For the next eighteen years van't Hoff remained at
Amsterdam. They were his most fruitful years. When
in 1896 he was called to Berlin, van't Hoff had become
the most renowned physical chemist of his day.

The early days of his professorship gave him little
leisure. Five lectures per week in organic chemistry,
and one each in mineralogy, crystallography, geology and
palaentology, together with supervision of the laboratory,
which provided for the instruction of graduate students,
beginners in chemistry, and medical students — all this
with but two assistants. Little wonder, indeed, that
during these years of exacting teaching and executive
duties the name of van't Hoff was quite absent from
the pages of the chemical journals. But that, of course,
does not mean that his imagination was not as active as
ever. It was during these years of much routine, chiefly
in the spare moments between supper and bedtime, that
the ideas which found their expression in the Etude de
Dynamique Chimique — the Revolution Chimique^ as it
has been called — were evolved.

This great work appeared in 1884. Speaking to the
German chemical society ten years later, van't Hoff
told that audience that the origin of these studies was to
be traced to his difficulty in explaining certain oxidation
processes. For example, oxidation takes place much
more slowly with methane than with methyl alcohol.
To explain this and other such changes a study of the
velocity of reactions became imperative. But the work
had an even grander aim, as the preface outlines:
" Progress in general in any science passes through
two distinct phases. At the beginning all scientific

90

JACOBUS HENRICUS VAN'T HOFF

research is of a descriptive or systematic kind. Later it
becomes rational or philosophical. It has not been other-
wise with chemistry. ... In the second phase of the
development, the researches are not limited to collecting
and co-ordinating the materials, but these pass to the
study of causal relations. The initial interest which
they had in a new substance has now disappeared;
while the knowledge of its chemical composition and of
its properties have a much greater value, becoming the
starting-point in the discovery of causal relations. The
history of every science consists in the evolution of the
descriptive period into the rational period."

At first the reception accorded this work suggested
that given to his Atoms in Space, that is, it was
very quietly ignored. In this case, however, the
question of language, or the standing of the author,
had nothing to do with it. In 1884 van't Hoff was
already a mighty figure, and the French language
circulated throughout Europe. The truth was that the
I chemists were ill-prepared for any mathematical appli-
cations to their subject. This time criticism gave place
to silence.

However, from far-off Sweden came a reverberating
echo. In one of the current journals, the Nordisk
Revy, for March 1885, appeared an exhaustive review
of van't Hoff's book, in which, among other things, the
reviewer had this to say: "Though the author has
already achieved prominence by his success in unlocking
the secrets of nature, his former accomplishments are
put into the shade with the appearance of this work."

The reviewer was none other than Svante Arrhenius,
then quite unknown, but later a figure to compare with
van't Hoff himself— and no higher compliment can be paid.

As with his earlier work, the Etude is to-day regarded
as one of our classics.

91

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

Towards the end of the Etude we already find a clear
expression of the relation of osmotic pressure in liquids to
the pressure exerted by gases — an analogy which soon led
to a remarkable elucidation of our knowledge of solution.

Sugar and salt are dissolved in water; what happens
to the sugar and the salt? In what state are they while
in solution?

Connecting the preliminary and apparently discon-
nected results of Raoult on freezing point depression,
and Traube and Pfeffer on osmotic pressure and its
measurement, van't Hoff enunciated his most celebrated
law : A substance in solution behaves as if it were a gas,
occupying a volume equal to the solvent.

The year 1887 may be regarded as the most important
in the history of physical chemistry. To begin with, the
second volume of Ostwald's Lehrbuch der allgemeinen
Chemiey — the basis for all modern text-books on the
subject, — made its appearance. Further, the first num-
ber of the Zeitschrift filr physikalische Chemie> edited
under the joint auspices of Ostwald and van't Hoff, was
issued. And last, but not least, van't Hoff's article
(revised) on the role of osmotic pressure in the analogy
between solutions and gases, and Arrhenius's essay on
the dissociation of substances dissolved in water, was
published in volume I of the Zeitschrift.

As the era of modern chemistry starts with Lavoisier,
so the science of physical chemistry starts with the three
musketeers, van't Hoff, Arrhenius and Ostwald.

In this same year the chair of physical chemistry at
Leipzig was offered van't Hoff. Upon this offer coming
to the ears of the Amsterdam authorities, attractive
counter proposals were immediately advanced. The
most alluring of these was that a physics-chemical in-
stitute was to be built expressly for him. This was put
into effect immediately.

92

JACOBUS HENRICUS VAN'T HOFF

During his remaining years in Amsterdam the experi-
mental possibilities to which the Etude pointed were
rigorously examined by van't Hoff and many students
drawn by his fame from all quarters of the globe. Among
the latter may be mentioned van Deventer, Spring,
Reicher, Arrhenius, Cohen, Bredig, Goldschmidt, Eyk-
man, Meyerhoffer, Ewan, and Bancroft (of Cornell) —
names known wherever physical chemistry flourishes.

In 1893 van't Hoff, together with Le Bel, were pre-
sented with the Davy Medal of the Royal Society (of
London), "in recognition of the introduction of the
theory of asymmetric carbon and its use in explaining
the constitution of optically active carbon compounds."1
Such was the progress which the theory had made in
the meantime, despite Kolbe.

The Germans had made one attempt to capture the
great Dutchman, and they were not yet ready to admit
defeat. Upon the death of August Kundt, in 1894, the

1The history of this Davy Medal is of uncommon interest.
As a result of innumerable explosions in the English coal mines,
with consequent loss of life, a society for preventing such accidents
was founded in 1813. One of its first measures was to engage the
services of Humphrey Davy, the celebrated chemist. Within a few
weeks after his appointment Davy announced the discovery of his
wonderful little safety lamp in the following words: " My results
have been successful far beyond my expectations. I trust the safe
lamp will answer all the objects of the collier. ... I have never
received so much pleasure from the result of any of my chemical
labors, for I trust the cause of humanity will gain something by it."
The colliers were not ungrateful. They presented Davy with a
silver plate valued at 1,500 pounds. This plate Davy disposed of
in his will as follows: "... I wish her [his wife] to enjoy the use
of my plate during her life, and she will leave it to my brother in
case he survives her, and if to any child of his who may be capable
of using it; but if he is not in a situation to use or to enjoy it then
I wish it to be melted and given to the Royal Society to provide a
medal to be given annually for the most important discovery in
Chemistry made in Europe or Anglo-America. ..."

8 93

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

Berlin faculty unanimously suggested van't Hoff's
name for the chair of experimental physics. Max
Planck, the faculty's representative, was sent on a
special mission to Amsterdam. Althoff, the representa-
tive in the Prussian Ministry of Education, sent van't
Hoff an additional message urging him to come to
Berlin and talk matters over. Finally, when some
hesitation still prevailed, Emil Fischer was commissioned
to use his good offices.

Van't Hoff, Jr., and van't Hoff, Sr., weighed the pros
and cons carefully. The offer was an unusual one, and
the honor extraordinary, but the duties of an active pro-
fessor at Berlin were not light, and here in Amsterdam
the authorities, ever afraid to lose their gifted country-
man, were ready at the first sign to lighten his burdens,
or increase his equipment. So van't Hoff, with papa's
advice, once again said nay.

But Berlin wanted van't Hoff. Was it a question of
too many hours of university teaching? Very well,
then; this will be cut down to an absurd minimum.
Since he is to hold a professorship, some lectures at the
University must be delivered, but unless otherwise
desired, these lectures need not exceed one per week.
The rest of the tune shall be van't Hoff's absolutely.
Further, a private laboratory, equipped for any type of
research van't Hoff shall elect, will be provided.

Need we wonder that he fell victim? " When for
the past twenty-years, year in and year out, one teaches
that potassium permanganate is an oxidising agent, one
gets a little tired," was van't Hoff's comment. "...
Of course, I have a very good position here in Amster-
dam— that cannot be denied. But there is a difference
between good and good. And when invitations are
always rejected, there comes a tune when no more
invitations are received."

94

JACOBUS HENRICUS VAN'T HOFF

The German universities get the best brains their land
can offer, and when better brains still are found beyond
their border, the most alluring offers are sent forth.
Thus it happened that at a later date attractions were
held out to Arrhenius, and even our own Richards had
difficulty in freeing himself from the Gottingen clutches.
If only the Anglo-Saxons would follow suit here! If
only in leaving the whey of German university training
they would be careful to retain any cream! What a joy
it would be to see Manchester scrambling for a Noyes,
or California for a Soddy!

It goes without saying that van't Hoff's migration met
with criticism in Holland. He was pictured as un-
patriotic, and as being ready to grab all he could get,
never being satisfied with what he had. Even the
Dutch Punch did not spare him. Picturing van't Hoff
in conversation with a fish, the following caricatures were
presented :

(1) Dr. v't H: Fish — fish in the sea, bring me a cap

and gown.
Fish: Here it is.

(2) Dr. v't H : Fish — fish hi the sea, bring me a labor-

atory.
Fish: Here it is.

(3) Dr. v't H: Fish— fish in the sea, bring me an Order

of the Crown.
Fish : Here it is.

(4) Dr. v't H: Fish— fish in the sea-
Fish: Still not enough? Adieu!

Writing to his friend Cohen from Charlottenburg (on
the outskirts of Berlin) on April 23, 1896, van't Hoff
,says: " This is quite a new life, and I look forward with
hope to the future. . . . Our apartment here [Uhland-
strasse 39] is excellent, and the situation all that can be
desired — half within, and half without the town. A

95

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

pleasant walk takes us to Grunenwald [a forest nearby],
from where we can return by train if desired, and the
station is quite near the house.

" I now find much more time to be with my family,
and this has particular attractions amidst strange sur-
roundings. The children all go to school. Everyone
of them, with the exception of Goof [the youngest]
has cried at one time or another because things were
not quite what they were before. But children accli-
matize themselves quickly enough provided they are
healthy, and the air here seems excellent.

"I have attended two meetings of the Academy,
which seem quite attractive under the stimulus of a
respectable cup of coffee. On Wednesday I shall give
my first lecture (one per week) as part of my duties as
ordentlicher honor ar professor.

"For the time being my laboratory consists of an
apartment, which I have rented near our home, and this
I shall equip with Meyerhoffer's help [Meyerhoffer was
van't Hoff's favorite assistant in Amsterdam whom he
had induced to come to Berlin],

" We intend to begin research work on the Stassfu
salt deposits. . . . The foundation for everything has
been laid, and so far as I can see everything looks bright
and cheerful. . . .

" My ever well-disposed wife and I pay quite a num-
ber of visits to the celebrities, whom I do not always
know how to entertain, and whom I am forever mis-
taking for other folks. Three dinners are in pros-
pect. ...»

The task which van't Hoff now set himself was to
make an exhaustive investigation of the potash deposits
in Stassfurt, Germany. When we remember that until
the outbreak of the world war the entire world was
practically dependent for its potash — to be used as a

96

JACOBUS HENRICUS VAN'T HOFF

constituent in fertilisers— upon these Stassfurt deposits,
the value of any research connected with them can
well be understood.

Of the substances present, the mineral, carnallite, is
by far the most important. The question which van't
Hoff first asked himself, and one which became the
keynote to all his subsequent work, was: "Carnallite
being a compound of magnesium and potassium chlor-
ides and water, what arises when these three sub-
stances are brought together in different proportions,
at different temperatures, and the escape of the water is
prevented?"

Between 1896 and 1906 more than fifty papers were
published on this and related subjects by van't Hoff
and collaborators, of whom Meyerhoffer stands out pre-
eminently. The work is of the most complicated kind,
and no one has yet been found who has been bold
enough to attempt a critical appraisal. This much seems
certain: that while the work is a splendid application
to industry of the phase rule by Willard Gibbs, the Yale
professor, it is overshadowed in originality by van't
Hofif's earlier contributions.

In 1906 van't Hoff turned his attention to one of the
most fascinating problems in biochemistry: the nature
of enzymes — those substances, present in all cells,
which bring about the chemical changes in the organism
so essential to life. The one or two papers on this
subject, which appeared immediately prior to his last
illness, were full of pregnant possibilities, and showed
the master at his best.

In 1900 van't Hoff was elected president of the German
chemical society; and in the following year he became
the first recipient of the Nobel Prize in chemistry,
Rontgen receiving the physics prize, and Behring, the
one hi medicine. In 1909 the Prussian Academy of

97

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

Science presented him with the Helmholtz medal, the
highest honor which they could bestow.

Van't Hoff, never robust, had been a sufferer of
tuberculosis for a number of years. The dread disease
took hold of him with particular virulence towards the
end of 1910, and it was soon apparent that he could
not hope to hold out much longer. On March i, 1911,
at the age of 59, the greatest Dutchman of our tunes
breathed his last. With his beloved Byron can we
say that here was one " too soon returned to earth."

When fame had come a-plenty, van't Hoff was much
in demand at scientific gatherings. Such travelling as
attendance at these meetings made necessary was under-
taken with little hardship after his singularly fortunate
Berlin appointment, and he loved to mingle with his
scientific confreres.

In 1890 he attended the British Association meeting
at Leeds, and took an active part in the discussion on
solution (see the article on Ramsay). In 1893 he
delivered an address on La Force osmotique before the
Sociele chimique de Paris, which probably explains
why hi the following year he was nominated for the
Legion of Honor on the ground of his " remarquables
travaux sur la chimie dans 1'espace" ! In 1894 he
addressed the Deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft on
" Wie die Theorie der Losungen entstand." 1

1 The late Prof. H. C. Jones, who was pursuing graduate studies
in Germany at the time, and who was present at this lecture, thus
describes the event: " There sat in the front row Helmholtz, Ost-
wald, Emil Fischer, and a number of other men of science were
present, whose names have become household words. These
included Landolt, Kossel, Jahn, Tiemann, Will, Witt, and many
others.

" The entrance of Helmholtz into the lecture room made an im-
pression that will not be forgotten. Helmholz had attended the

98

JACOBUS HENRICUS VAN'T HOFF

In 1898 van't Hoff, as the triple delegate of the Univ.
of Berlin, of the Academy, and of the Chemical Society,
undertook a trip to Stockholm to attend a Berzelius
celebration. To honor the memory of the immortal
Swedish chemist was doubtless his desire, but a still
greater incentive for this journey was the opportunity
it afforded to be with his friend Arrhenius.

Three years later we find him on his way to the United
States to attend the tenth anniversary of the founding
of the University of Chicago (see addendum); and
before the year is out he is to be found hi London, in
the Royal Institution, holding forth " in perfect English
syntax, with here and there a modification of the vowels
which indicated that the language was not his native

World's Fair in Chicago, and on his return home, when disem-
barking at Bremen, had slipped and fallen down the stairway of the
ship. He, as is well known, ruptured a blood vessel on the head,
which at the time nearly caused his death from loss of blood. . . .
When Helmholtz appeared at the top of the lecture room, Emil
Fischer ran and assisted him down the steps to a seat in the front
row of the hall; the greatest physicist of the day aided by the most
active organic chemist of that period.

" The object in inviting Van't Hoff to lecture in Berlin at that
time, was to see and hear him with the possibility of calling him to
that great university. His fame had already spread, and the real
greatness of the man was even then beginning to be pretty fully
realized. . . .

" This was the first time I had ever seen Van't Hoff. There
arose to speak a slight figure of scarcely average height, with long,
rather coarse hair, and with an extremely modest demeanor. This,
as is well known to those who knew Van't Hoff at all closely, was
one of his most striking characteristics. The speaker at first seemed
a little nervous, due no doubt in part to the character of the audience
he was facing, and in part to the fact that he probably suspected the
motive in asking him to lecture in Berlin just at that time. . . .
Van't Hoff had not proceeded far with the lecture, when any initial
nervousness entirely disappeared, and his manner of presentation
made a deep and lasting impression upon his audience."

99

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

tongue." The theme was the life and labors of Raoult,
the eminent French physicist, who had but recently
died, and whose work was so indissolubly bound with
that of van't Hoff. The concluding words of this lecture
apply as much to van't Hoff as to Raoult: "Yet his
(Raoulfs) character may be read hi his papers: activity,
patience, tenacity to an extreme degree hi pursuing an
aim, having an eye as much for detail as for vaster and
vaster horizens, absolute independence of mind, power
of criticising or of admitting without passion the views
of others as well as his own, and of testing both with the
same calm conviction that the last word must rest with
experiment; this is what we read hi every page and what
the whole chemical world may know."

Two years later (hi 1903) he is hi England once more —
this time in Manchester, in the city where once reigned
a John Dalton and a James Prescott Joule, of whom
Manchester ought to be far prouder than she is (which
is saying no more of Manchester than what might be
said of many another English or American city). One
hundred years had passed since Dalton had brought
forward his Atomic Theory, and the university of his
native city now celebrated the event in becoming fashion.
What the university authorities thought of van't Hoff
may still be gauged to-day by anyone who enters the
chemical laboratory of the university. At its entrance
is a tablet with this enscription: "This stone was
laid by Professor J. H. van't Hoff, 2oth May, 1903, in
commemoration of the centenary of Dalton's Atomic
Theory."

In the following year we find him in Munich, sent
[there to represent the chemical society at the celebration
of Baeyer's seventieth birthday. Van't Hoff had a very
soft spot for the great Baeyer, the master of the chemistry
of indigo and countless other organic substances, who,

zoo

JACOBUS HENRICUS VAN'T HOFF

as far back as 1875, had declared of the Atoms in Space,
" Da 1st wirklich mal wieder ein neuer guter Gedanke
in unsere Wissenschaft gekommen, der reiche Fruchte
tragen wird."

A journey to Vienna hi 1906, to attend a conference
of Austrian engineers and architects, who — strange to
relate ! — were eager to hear van't Hoff on the subject of
thermochemistry, gave him unusual pleasure. " Vi-
enna— that was delightful," he writes; "I shall never
forget those days. Profs. Klaudy and von Juptner had
arranged for everything, and every hour was accounted
for. It was only with the greatest difficulty that I could
escape sometimes. I was really amazed at the things I
could still do at my age. Don't ask me what I have seen.
I have seen everyone except the Kaiser, and have done
everything except rest. But it was all so lovely."

That same year he and his wife were in Italy to witness
an eruption of Vesuvius. Whatever enjoyment the two
got out of this trip was more than offset by van't Hoff's
disease, which at this stage gripped him with added
force.

We have seen how in early life van't Hoff was the poet
and romanticist. In later years poetry was all but for-
gotten. His thoughts were with his chemistry every-
where, and at all times. Even music served but to
concentrate his mind upon a problem, for he has told
us that " good music makes it very pleasant to think of
other things " — " other things " being, perhaps, the
velocity of some reaction. Towards the end of his life,
when doctors' orders forbade mental effort, he branched
out into novel reading, and passed time with Turgenieff
and Zola — the latter, in particular, a strange antithesis
to the Byron of his youth.

Van't Hoff had never been robust, and ceaseless
mental activity added to the uncertain elements in his

IOI

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

state of health.1 Hayfever was a regular yearly visitor,
and in later years tuberculosis added to his afflictions.2
Van't Hoff's wife and four children, Johanna Francina
(b. 1880) (who married privat-docent Ulrich Behn in
1905), Aleida Jacoba (b. 1882) (who married Dr. Charles
W. Snyder, of Baltimore), Jacobus Hendricus (b. 1883),
and Go very Jacob (b. 1889) survive him.

Addendum
van't Hoff in America

On the occasion of its tenth anniversary, the Uni-
versity of Chicago invited some distinguished foreign
scholars to attend its celebration. Among these was
van't Hoff. Whilst on his journey van't Hoff kept a
brief diary which has since found its way into Ernest
Cohen's life of the great Dutch chemist.

No sooner were the necessary arrangements com-
pleted with Nef , representing the University of Chicago,
than further invitations began to pour in from the
American Chemical Society, from Yale, from Richards
at Harvard, from Bancroft at Cornell, from Loeb at
Wood's Hole, etc.

With his wife by his side, and with a dose of sodium
cyanide hi his pocket, to be used in case of accident — a
typical European custom — van't Hoff set sail from
Rotterdam on May 21, 1901. Being a Dutch celebrity,

i " Van't Hoff ... not only worked under high tension, but he
seemed to live under high tension. When one saw him on the
street he moved as if on rubber, and this kind of living would, in
time, of necessity react upon the nervous system." — Prof. Harry C.
Jones.

2 " van't Hoff, as is well known [to whom?] contracted tubercu-
losis, probably while studying an eruption of Vesuvius. He thought
that the dust lacerated his throat and lungs, and that the tubercle
bacillus then began its work." — Prof. H. C. Jones.

102

JACOBUS HENRICUS VAN'T HOFF

the directors of the Holland-American Line set aside a
stateroom for his use, and at table he sat with the
captain on one side of him and the Dutch Consul to
St. Paul on the other.

The voyage, aside from a day of rough weather, was,
on the whole, a pleasant one. Professor Webster Wells,
of Boston, and Dr. Pettijohn, of Chicago, whom he met
on board, proved agreeable companions. During the
spare moments when talk and play did not occupy him,
van't Hoff busied himself with Loeb's work.

After landing in New York, where his pockets were
searched by a custom-house official as though he were a
pickpocket (!), van't Hoff registered at the Savoy Hotel.
Here troubles soon began. The taxi-man proved ex-
orbitant. The wash basin hi his room had unexpected
possibilities. The shades simply could not be moved,
as though defiant of European authority. And the
trunk, without which outdoor life was not to be thought
of, simply would not show up.

In good time things righteu themselves somewhat.
With the arrival of the trunk a brief stroll was under-
taken. Everything was greeted with open-mouthed
astonishment. Much was found that was beautiful;
much that was ugly; but everywhere something very
distinctively American was encountered. Upon his
return, cards from Professor Chandler, from his son-
in-law, Pellew, and from a reporter of the New York
Tribune^ together with an invitation to the Century Club,
awaited him. This was evidently the beginning of
American hospitality.

At luncheon there was a welcome introduction to ice-
water — an unknown luxury in Europe. After the mid-
day meal, Miss Maltby, of Barnard, whom van't Hoff
had met in Gottingen, called on him and his wife, and
the trio started out on a stroll through Central Park and

103

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

the Zoo, thence by bus to the " glorious " Hudson and
Grant's Tomb, and finally to Barnard and the girls for
supper.

The following day visits to Hale, to Chandler and to
Pellew were planned. Brooklyn proved too complicated
a center, and Hale could not be located. However, a
sight of Brooklyn Bridge partially repaid his disappoint-
ment, for this structure aroused much admiration from
the artistic scientist. The homes of Chandler and
Pellew, " with their well-dressed ladies," were easier
to find.

Not being expected in Chicago for some days, van't
Hoff decided to visit some places of interest in this
country. The first to be selected was Baltimore, with
its Ira Remsen and Johns Hopkins. The country, as
viewed from a Pullman, did not excite him much. One
feature was the large posters along the road, announcing
such items as " Baker's 5c Cigars, Generously Good,"
or " Omega Oil For Sore Feet, Stops Pain, For Head-
aches, For Everything." That, at least, was America
with a vengeance! Passing into Philadelphia over the
Delaware recalled the story of the famous crossing and
the chain of dramatic events that followed it.

Baltimore was much more after his own heart. There
was none of that breathless living so characteristic of the
Empire City. Here people lived more on the style of
the Rotterdammers and Amsterdammers.

At the University he met his old pupil, Harry C.
Jones, whose open-hearted laughter, with his "all
right" and "first-rate" and "that's it" won van't
Hofif completely. Here he was shown the first of the
series of classical researches on osmotic pressure, so
intimately associated with the name of Morse.

The greeting by President Remsen and the Faculty
in the Senate House was most cordial. "Really

104

JACOBUS HENRICUS VAN'T HOFF

great " was a phrase used, and van't Hoff felt satisfied.
The lunch at Remsen's which followed it, however, was
too exclusively American; particularly the grape-fruit,
which van't Hoff had not, as yet, cultivated a taste for.

On to Washington! More south! More negroes!!
Fans!!!

Here the trusty Baedeker did yeoman service —
whether at the Capitol, or at Howard University (a uni-
versity for negroes I), or at the Geological Survey, or at
the Smithsonian Institution, or at Mount Vernon.
There was much to admire. And Day and Clarke and
Hillebrandt, of all of whom he had heard much, he was
glad to meet.

Over the Lehigh Valley to Mauch Chunk, the " Ameri-
can Switzerland,1' with its immense coal-fields, and
thence to Ithaca. Here some delightful hours were
spent with Bancroft and his wife. An introduction to
President Schurman gave occasion for a discussion of
the influence of the money-kings on the development of
American universities. This was apropos of the dis-
missal of a professor who professed leanings towards
socialism. Their next stop was in Buffalo, where the
Pan-American Exposition and the grand Niagara Falls
were visited.

From Buffalo van't Hoff proceeded direct to Chicago.
The Pullman arrangements were an unpleasant surprise
to him. He recalled how traveling from Paris to Strass-
burg each passenger had his own little room with his
own wash-stand. But these common sleeping quarters,
stiflingly hot and uncomfortable, with one wash-stand
for all!

At Chicago Nef had undertaken to look after his com-
fort, and the result was everything that could be desired.
His suite at the Hotel Windemere was ducal in pre-
tentiousness.

105

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

The first part of the celebration consisted of a reception
tendered by Mr. Rockefeller. Here he made the ac-
quaintance of Stieglitz and Alexander Smith. In the
afternoon van't Hoff delivered the first of his promised
addresses, and this duly made its appearance in Science.
Later on, Nef took him to a baseball game which was to
be played between Chicago and Michigan, and here, for
the first time, van't Hoff really understood just what
baseball is. It would seem that while in Washington he
had one day watched a steamer crowded with lively
young girls depart for a baseball game. At that time our
learned professor was of the opinion that baseball was
some sort of a dance !

In the evening the president tendered a dinner to his
guests. Van't Hoff was seated between M. Cambon,
the French Ambassador, and Professor Goodwin, of
Harvard. Goodwin considered van't "Hoff's speech on
the occasion — " American Ideals " — the best, because
it was the shortest! Rockefeller's presence made wine
or beer out of the question.

Following this came the general reception, which
was most noteworthy for the immense crowd that had
gathered there. Van't Hoff retired to a quiet corner
with Alexander Smith, " an extraordinary tall col-
league."

The following day — June 18 — began with the laying
of the foundation stone. The heat was terrific, and poor
van't Hoff fell quite asleep during the long-drawn-out
speeches.

Then came the awarding of degrees. All the honorary
recipients were there, with the exception of the Russian,
who had got his dates confused because of sticking too
close to his Russian Calendar !

Fully one half of the students who received degrees
were girls. This was an excellent augury for the future,

106

JACOBUS HENRICUS VAN'T HOFF

thought van't Hoff, and the thought he conveyed to an
acquaintance sitting near-by. This man explained the
University's point of view by saying that the authorities
did not greatly encourage the girl graduates to seek
positions, but did like to see these same girls marry rich
men. Why? Because it would then be the duty of
these girls to interest their rich husbands in the needs of
the University. Was the man serious?

van't Hoff was among a few to receive the honorary
degree of Doctor of Laws.

At i P.M. came the alumni dinner, and van't Hoff was
honored by being seated next to Rockefeller. Very
little conversation was carried on with the oil magnate,
because this gentleman seemed much too preoccupied
with his coming speech. When Rockefeller's turn did
come, he commenced with a story about a negro who was
asked what he thought of Jesus, to which the negro
replied, " I have nothing against Him." With this,
Rockefeller turned to the public and said, "I have
nothing against you." Van't Hoff does not tell us how
the millionaire further developed his speech.

Again not a drop of alcohol on the table! Again
Rockefeller's influence I

The next four or five days were mainly occupied with
the preparation and deliverance of the lectures — since
published and translated into English by Alexander
Smith.

On the 24th of June van't Hoff departed for Cam-
bridge. At Boston he was met by Richards, who had
provided for his comfort as liberally as had Nef at
Chicago.

On the 26th, which was the day of Harvard's Com-
mencement, van't Hoff was presented for his honorary
degree as " the greatest living physical chemist," a
statement which was received with much applause. The

107

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

lunch at Memorial Hall which followed was chiefly
memorable because of Roosevelt's presence. The well-
advertised teeth showed prominently. The evening was
spent at the homes of Richards and Miinsterberg. The
following day, with Jackson and Richards as guides,
Boston's sights were carefully inspected. In the evening
he was the chief guest at a dinner which included Presi-
dent Eliot, Richards, Jackson, Pickering, Trowbridge,
Hill, Michael and Bancroft. Gibbs and Crafts sent
regrets. Van't Hoff was seated next to Eliot, who dis-
cussed with him the possibility of losing Richards, at
that tune considered as a probable candidate for the
chair of chemistry at Gb'ttingen — an unusual distinction
for an American.

Van't Hoff took his departure from this country highly
impressed with all that he had seen. He prophesied
that within fifty years American universities would
seriously rival those in Europe. It is but nineteen
years since he has been here, but his prophecy has
already come true.

References

Cohen's life of his great master (i) contains most of
the available biographical material. For references to
atoms hi space, see 2, 3 and 4; for organic chemistry, 5;
chemical dynamics, 6 and 7; theory of solution, 8;
Stassfurt deposits, 9.

1. Ernst Cohen: Jacobus Henricus Van't Hoff: Sein Leben und

Wirken (Akademische Verlagsgessellschaft, Leipzig. 1912).

2. J. H. van't Hoff: The Arrangement of Atoms in Space (Long-

mans, Green and Co. 1898).

3. J. H. van't Hoff: Chemistry in Space (Clarendon Press, Oxford.

1891).

4. J. H. van't Hoff: Stereochemistry. Encycl. Britannica, 25,

890 (1911)-

5. J. H. van't Hoff: Ansichten u'ber die organische Chemie (Vieweg

und Sohn, Braunschweig. 1881).
108

JACOBUS HENRICUS VAN'T HOFF

6. J. H. van't Hoff: Studies in Chemical Dynamics (Chemical

Publishing Co., Easton, Pa. 1896).

7. J. H. van't Hoff : Lectures on Theoretical and Physical Chemistry.

Part i. Chemical Dynamics. Part 2. Chemical Statics.
Part 3. Relation Between Properties and Composition
(Edwin Arnold, London. 1899).

8. H. C. Jones: The Modern Theory of Solution (Memoirs by

Pfeffer, van't Hoff, Arrhenius and Raoult) (Harper Brothers.

1899).

9. J. H. van't Hoff: Physical Chemistry in the Service of the

Sciences (English version by Alexander Smith) (University
of Chicago Press, Chicago. 1903).

109

SVANTE ARRHENIUS

JNIUS'S fame rests secure on his The-
ory of Electrolytic Dissociation, which postu-
lates that those substances which, when
dissolved in water or any other solvent, are
good conductors of electricity, are also those substances
which, in solution, largely decompose, or dissociate, into
atoms, or groups of atoms, carrying powerful electric
charges (the so-called " ions "). The theory was a direct
outcome of van't Hoff's osmotic pressure studies, and
its effect on the development of every phase of chemistry
has been incalculable. That it is as sound in principle
as Dalton's Atomic Theory or Mendeleeff's Periodic
Law can hardly be doubted, for it, like the others, has
helped to clear up many mysteries and to pave the way
for many new discoveries. Its services have extended
beyond chemistry and invaded the realms of the physi-
ologist, the botanist, the zoologist and the medical man.
One may mention the insight it gives us into the mechan-
ism by which the blood maintains its remarkable
neutrality, and the light it has shed upon various phases
of cellular activity.

Arrhenius' later contributions to bacteriology and
astronomy stamp him as one of the most versatile, as
well as one of the most extraordinary men of our age.

Svante Arrhenius was born in Wyk, near Upsala,
Sweden, on February 19, 1859. His father and mother
(nee Thumburg) traced their descent back to many a
generation.

Soon after Arrhenius's birth his parents moved to
Upsala, Sweden, and there young Svante received his

in

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

public and high-school education, matriculating at 17
with an exceptionally fine record in mathematics,
physics and biology — three subjects, in which his genius
was to find splendid scope.

For the next five years he pursued his studies at the
University of Upsala, specializing in mathematics,
physics, and to some extent in chemistry. In this last
subject he had Cleve for professor, and Cleve's lectures
on organic chemistry gave Arrhenius food for thought.
The simplest formula for cane sugar, said Cleve, was
Ci2H22On; the strong probabilities were that the actual
formula was a multiple of this, but there was no known
way of finding out. Why not? thought Arrhenius, to
whom things " unknowable " presented an irresistible
fascination. And he forthwith set out to solve the prob-
lem of determining the molecular weight of the sugar
by some electrical means, — electricity being the key to
all difficulties.

All Arrhenius's attempts ended in failure. In the
meantime, Raoult, the professor at Grenoble, France,
had solved the mystery by his freezing-point determina-
tions, but many days were to pass before the voice from
Grenoble would reach Upsala.

Arrhenius's attempts led him to investigate the con-
ductivity of solutions (with respect to the electric cur-
rent), and by one of those happy strokes which of ten
decide a man's fate or career, he chose dilute rather
than concentrated solutions.

These experiments were carried out in Stockholm
during 1881-84, for Upsala offered few favorable facili-
ties. Edlung, the professor of physics, and the great
authority on electricity, dissuaded Arrhenius from all
chemical pursuits, possibly because he himself knew
little chemistry. Arrhenius thanked him for his advice
and went his own way; but Edlung undoubtedly gave

112

SVANTE ARRHENIUS

him that foundation in the science of electricity without
which his great discovery would have been impossible.
Our young experimenter had not groped his way
many miles before he formed the opinion that in dilute
solutions there was a complete dissociation, or cleavage
of the molecules.

These were startlingly heterodox views. Did this
young physicist assert that when common salt (the
chemical name for which is sodium chloride) is dis-
solved in water, the salt dissociates into its components
sodium and chlorine? Absurd! Sodium is a poisonous
white metal, which violently attacks water as soon as it
comes in contact with it; chlorine is a yellow-colored,
suffocating gas, only too well known to the present
generation. But neither sodium, nor chlorine, nor
anything like these two elements makes its appearance
when salt is dissolved in water.

Answered Arrhenius, meekly, but nevertheless with
conviction, the chlorine and the sodium that are freed
' are not freed as chlorine and sodium atoms, but as
j chlorine and sodium " ions " (borrowing a word corned
\ by Faraday), which are atoms (and sometimes groups
[ of atoms) carrying powerful electric charges; these
I electric charges powerfully modify the properties of the
;' elements.

What, then, does an electric current do when it passes
t through the solution? How, under these circumstances,
\ do you explain the formation of hydrogen and chlorine
? at the two poles?

That's simple, said the twenty-odd year old Swede.

The current does not dissociate the salt — the water does

• that; the electric current merely directs the path of the

' ions, sending the sodium ions to the cathode, and the

chlorine ions to the anode. There the opposite electrical

charges neutralise one another and sodium and chlorine

(

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

atoms remain. The sodium atom is no sooner liberated
than it attacks the water, decomposes it, forms caustic
soda, and liberates hydrogen; so that the net result of
the operation is to form caustic soda and to liberate the
two gases hydrogen and chlorine.

The explanation was simple enough and fitted the
facts remarkably well, but Arrhenius had disadvantages
to contend against. He was a mere boy and quite
unknown, and his professors were men of renown, who,
like most men beyond a certain age, unlearn with diffi-
culty, and adopt new ideas only when painful necessity
makes any other course impossible. But at this lime
there was no such necessity. Arrhenius was a candi-
date for the doctor's degree, and without counting the
consequences, he incorporated many of these heteredox
views in his thesis with the elaborate title : Recherches
sur la conductibilite galvanique des electrolytes —
(i) conductibilite galvanique des solutions aqueous
extremementdiluees; (2) theorie chimique des electro-
lytes.

No wonder the professors were up in arms. What
right had a candidate for a doctor's degree to express
views so diametrically opposed to those held by the
authorities?

At this time Arrhenius had not yet made the acquaint-
ance of van't Hoff, otherwise that immortal Dutchman,
no less immortal because of his good, hard common-
sense, might have advised his colleague in Sweden to
present a stereotyped research for the Ph.D. and reserve
his more valuable work for another occasion — just as
van't Hoff himself had done several years before in
Utrecht.

Fortunately for Arrhenius he began to scent difficul-
ties just in the nick of time. Instead, therefore, of
saying that in a dilute solution there was total dissocia-

114

SVANTE ARRHENIUS

tion, he declared himself in favor of the view that in
solution salts consist of two different kinds of molecules,
the inactive — " this expression did not look danger-
ous " — and the active, the latter only conducting elec-
tricity. In a moment of happy inspiration, Arrhenius
added that the active molecules are in a state described
by Clausius.

Now Clausius was the physicist of the physicists of
his time whom the Stockholm School simply venerated,
and truly enough Clausius had expressed views closely
resembling Arrhenius's, though not carried to so logical
a conclusion. Said Arrhenius to an American scientific
gathering not many years ago : " He [Clausius] was a
great authority, therefore it could not be regarded as
unwise to share his ideas."

A careful review of Berthellot's thermo-chemical
studies led Arrhenius to the view that the strongest acids
were also the best conductors of electricity.

"The next step was also quite clear: the active

molecules, which are active in regard to electricity, are

! also active in regard to chemical properties, and that was

| the great step. ... I got that idea on the night of

the 1 7th of May in the year 1883, and I could not

| sleep that night until I had worked through the whole

problem."

Everything followed from this: the constant amount
| of heat formed when strong acids and strong bases react
(due to the formation of undissociated water in every
'reaction of this kind); the reaction of electrolytes (sub-
: stances which conduct electricity) as being due to the
reaction of the ions first formed ; etc.

" I had deduced a rather great number of different
properties which had not been explained before; but
I must say that this circumstance made no very great
impression upon my professor at Upsala."

"5

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

"I came to my professor, Cleve, whom I admire
very much, and I said, ' I have a new theory of elec-
trical conductivity as a cause of chemical reactions.'
He said, ' This is very interesting,' and then said,
* Goodbye ! ' He explained to me later [when Arrhenius
was presented with the Nobel prize] that he knew very
well that there are so many different theories formed,
and that they are all almost certain to be wrong, for
after a short tune they disappear; and therefore by
using the statistical manner of forming his ideas
he concluded that my theory also would not exist
long" [!]

Newlands' Law of Octaves anticipated the Periodic
Law, but the ridicule that was heaped upon it by mem-
bers of the English chemical society completely dis-
couraged him. Not so Arrhenius. Having failed in
his own country, he turned to foreign lands and wrote to
Clausius, Thomson, and — again by a happy inspiration —
Ostwald. The first two replied in a friendly tone:
"They were glad to make my acquaintance, but not
much more."

Ostwald, however, was deeply impressed. He had
worked much on the chemical activity of acids, and now,
with the help of Arrhenius's dissertation, he investigated
their electrical activity, and found that the two ran
proportionally.

In later years, when Arrhenius's theory had well nigh
assumed the majesty of a law, Ostwald was fond of
relating how he got, on the same day, the Swede's dis-
sertation, a toothache and a nice daughter. " That was
too much for one day," was Arrhenius's comment;
" the worst was the dissertation, for the others developed
quite normally."

" The worst was the dissertation." Quite true. The
struggle was but in its infancy.

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SVANTE ARRHENIUS

He had made, however, one all-powerful adherent.
In Ostwald he found a man who is the expounder par
excellence. What Huxley was to Darwin, Ostwald
became to Arrhenius; and Ostwald is a first-class
scientist, a gifted writer and a fighter to be feared —
further unmistakable resemblances to the great Huxley
of the Victorian period. The battle of the "ions"
in the eighties and nineties waxed just as hot as the
battles over the descent of man in the sixties and the
seventies.

The analogy may be carried a step further. In
Darwin's days the battle was no less severe, though such
choice spirits as Malthus and Lyell had anticipated,
and to a certain extent paved the way for Darwin's
work. So prior to Arrhenius's day the rumblings of a
storm were announced by Valson and Raoult and Gay-
Lussac and Williamson and Clausius. Even Lord
Rayleigh, as president of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science in 1884 said : "... from the
further study of electrolysis we may expect to gain
improved views as to the nature of chemical reactions,
and of the forces concerned in bringing them about.
... I cannot help thinking that the next great advance,
of which we have already seen some foreshadowing, will
come on this side."

What could be plainer? But Rayleigh, renowned
physicist that he was, spoke as a voice in the wilderness.
The multitude could not and would not see.

Ostwald came to see Arrhenius in Stockholm to talk
matters over, and, incidentally, to give a certain amount
of prestige to the young doctor. In Upsala Ostwald saw
Cleve who, taking up a water solution, said to the Riga
professor, " And you also are a believer in these little
sodium atoms swimming around? " — to which Ostwald
replied that he thought there was some truth in that

117

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

idea. " Cleve threw a look at me which clearly showed
that he didn't think much of my chemical knowledge."

The university authorities granted Arrhenius the
doctor's degree, but their commendation — " non sine
laude approbateur " — showed that the dissertation had
aroused no great enthusiasm in their breasts.

Arrhenius now decided to do what many an American
prodigy has been forced to do : he decided to leave his
country and fight for recognition in foreign lands. He
knew well enough that should he come back crowned
by the approval of the great masters of Europe, the
former scoffers would become his loudest admirers.
So he made arrangements to accept Ostwald's hospitality
in Riga and pursue further investigations at the poly-
technic school there.

Both met later at the Naturforscher-versammlung
(similar to our Association for the Advancement of
Science) in Magdeburg, with the object of proceeding
to Riga together after the conclusion of that gathering.
But the illness of Arrhenius's father temporarily upset
all plans, and Arrhenius returned home.

His father died in the spring of 1885, and about a
year later Arrhenius set out for Riga, materially eased
by a stipend which he had received from the Swedish
Academy at the earnest solicitation of his teacher,
Edlung.

Ostwald had set aside part of his own private labora-
tory for Arrhenius's use, and though the two did not work
together, they had ample opportunity for ultimate dis-
cussion, and this led to a friendship which grows stronger
day by day.

After spending the winter, spring and summer with
Ostwald, Arrhenius, true to his undertaking, left for
Wiirzburg to study under Kohlrausch. Here he came
upon van't Hoff's celebrated memoir on osmotic pres-

118

SVANTE ARRHENIUS

sure, in which Raoult's work was extensively discussed.
It now became quite clear to Arrhenius that all electro-
lytes consist of the equivalent of at least two molecules
and not one — that a molecule of common salt (sodium
chloride) when dissolved in water, produces the effect
of two molecules, due to the formation of the two ions,
sodium and chlorine, each of which behaves as if it
were a molecule. These conclusions now rested upon
chemical, electrical and thermodynamic evidence.1

The above explanation made clear certain anomalous
results which van't Hoff obtained in his experiments on
osmotic pressure. In some instances the osmotic pres-
sure was twice as great as what might have been ex-
pected from theoretical considerations. This " double
bombardment " of the molecules, for which vanJt Hoff
made allowances in a mathematical equation to express
the reaction, was now seen to be due to the bombardment
of ions. For every molecule two ions were formed, and
each ion behaved as a molecule.

This led to a correspondence which culminated in
a rare friendship between the two foremost physical
chemists of the age.

Writing to van't Hoff from Wurzburg in 1887, Arrhen-
ius makes inquiries as to the possibilities of working
in his laboratory in Amsterdam. The prompt reply has
more than a cordial ring. Van't Hoff advises the Swed-
ish scientist to come somewhat before the vacation is
completely over " so that I may give my entire atten-
tion to your visit."

1 Prof. Jacques Loeb informs me that van't Hoff's first paper
on osmotic pressure was submitted to the Swedish Academy,
and the secretary of that body passed it on to Arrhenius for an
expression of opinion. In van't Hoff's paper Arrhenius found the
data which supplied the missing links to his theory of electrolytic
dissociation.

IIQ

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

After a brief interval spent with Boltzmann in Gratz,
Arrhenius proceeded to Amsterdam, and became the
first foreign student of the physico-chemical laboratory
there. Here, as in Riga, Arrhenius's irresistible per-
sonality won all hearts. Before many days he was
" Dear Svante " to the head of the place, and on terms
of intimacy with Mrs. van't Hoff, Eykman, Reicher and
Van Deventer — the three last being, at that time, the
most active workers at the laboratory.

If Ostwald did much for his Swedish protege it is
but fair to say that van't Hoff did little less. The
Stockholm authorities were never for a moment left in
doubt as to the opinions these illustrious men had
formed of Arrhenius. They were directly responsible
for Arrhenius's ultimate appointment in Stockholm,
despite the most strenuous objections from the local
body.

Van't Hoff and Arrhenius were much together in later
years. These two, together with their champion, Ost-
wald, formed a friendship which is rare even in scientific
circles. The two great creators, supported by their
great interpreter, made up a trio which led the way in
the onward march towards a more rational chemistry.

In 1910, some months before van't Hoff's death,
Arrhenius paid him a visit in his Berlin home. Writing
to Prof. Ernst Cohen, Arrhenius has this to say of what
was to prove the last occasion on which he was to see
his friend: " At first van't Hoff looked quite a pathetic
figure. His voice, always so musical, was now quite
hoarse. He was forced to lie on the sofa for pretty
nearly the whole day. One morning Schmidt, of the
ministry of education, paid him a visit. Van't Hoff
was somewhat uncomfortable because this man found
him lying down. Later van't Hoff said to me, ' These
fellows think that one must be quite a lazy man to be

120

SVANTE ARRHENIUS

lying down. But as a matter of fact I read constantly,
and make as good progress as if I were sitting up.'
I comforted him with the remark that I had done more
reading in bed than out of it. I noticed, however, that
when he read he soon got tired and put his book aside.
There is no question but that he must take the utmost
care of himself not to allow matters to take a turn for
the worse.

"He accompanied me to the Stettin station. We
drank three glasses of beer. This was followed by a
return to his good old self. The eyes began to twinkle,
and the little stories to flow.

" He was sorry that we could not remain together
longer. 'We are getting old quickly — particularly I,'
said he, sorrowfully."

From Amsterdam Arrhenius proceeded to Leipzig, to
the university of which Ostwald had recently been ap-
pointed, and here he gave the finishing touches to his now
classical paper on electrolytic dissociation — a more fin-
ished product than his doctor's dissertation. An extract
was first sent to Sir Oliver Lodge, and the paper appeared

i in its entirety, together with van't Hoff's equally cele-
brated one on the analogy between the gaseous and the
dissolved state, in volume I of the newly-created Zeit-
schrift fur physikalische Chemie. Rarely, if ever, in

, the history of chemistry have two such epoch-making
papers been published side by side in the same number
of a scientific journal.

Their publication in 1887 did not lead to immediate
recognition, but it did lead to fierce opposition on the

? part of many and thereby gave its authors much notor-

' iety, so that to every chemist and physicist the name of
Arrhenius became familiar if only as one associated
with wild ideas of a post-impressionistic school. The
1890 British Association meeting at Leeds gave rise to

121

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

verbal cannon which in intensity has been equalled only
by a former meeting of this organisation in which Huxley
and a bishop played a leading role (see Ramsay). In
Berlin the wise privat-docenten spoke learnedly of
immature thoughts based on a quicksand foundation.
One or two did hint that an idea or two was not wanting,
but that only a Helmholtz could have developed these.
Even in far-off America Kahlenberg, of Wisconsin, the
leading anti-ionist, concluded from his studies as late
as ipoo1 that the dissociation theory was incorrect and
doomed to early extinction. But just as in England the
agent for the firm of " Ions " had a pretty skilful repre-
sentative in the person of Ramsay, so here H. C. Jones,
and later T. W. Richards, A. A. Noyes, W. D. Bancroft, J.
L. R. Morgan, and others who had imbibed their knowl-
edge from the Leipzig school, proved able defenders.

In the meantime the " wild army of lonians," as
Horstmann had dubbed the celebrated trio, were making
no end of noise throughout Europe. Leipzig became the
headquarters of the concern, and Ostwald the director.
Ostwald's great Lehrbuch der Allgemeinen Chemie, his
Zeitschrift and his splendidly equipped physico-chemical
laboratory which the university authorities had specially
built for him, attrcated enthusiastic students from all
over the world who, with their Ph.D.'s in their pocket,
with their minds filled with their " ionic " disserta-
tions and Ostwald's " ionic " lectures, and, what is
far more to the point, with an understanding, after several
years of earnest study, of the true merits of the case,
spread the new gospel far and wide.

1 It should be added, in justice to Kahlenberg, that some of his
criticisms cannot be lightly passed over. That there are imper-
fections in the theory Arrhenius himself has been the first to admit,
but it is hard to see how, when it has helped to explain so much in
our science, it does not contain the germ of some great truth.

122

SVANTE ARRHENIUS

In France alone, strangely enough, the new fashion
was very slow of adoption. This is all the more strange
since two of Arrhenius' s illustrious forerunners, Gay-
Lussac and Raoult, hailed from there. Perhaps the
second startling development in modern chemistry,
radium, which had its origin towards the close of the
last century not far from the historic buildings of the
Sorbonne, absorbed the French too much.

In 1891, only four years after the publication of his
paper, Arrhenius was offered a professorship at Giessen,
the university made famous by Liebig who, in the minds
of a public overfed on " cures " of all kinds, is asso-
ciated with " Liebig's Beef Extract." But the Swede
politely declined and accepted in its stead a modest
lectureship at the Stockholm High School.1 Four years
later he was appointed professor, though not without a
struggle ; which clearly showed how strongly opposed the
men there were to his views.

Arrhenius upon closer acquaintance quickly converted
enemies into friends, so that we find that five years after
his appointment as lecturer he is nominated Rector,2 and
renominated three times in succession. The third time
Arrhenius simply had to refuse, since executive duties
were eating too much into his research time.

The Germans had tried once to get hold of van't
Hoff, and tried again when the first attempt was unsuc-
' cessful, the second time with better results. Their
strategy was now repeated. Having failed to get Arrhen-
ius for Giessen they, in 1905, offered him a post similar
to the one which van't Hoff had accepted several years
before — as " Academiker " in Berlin; which meant a

1 It should be made clear at this point that the continental idea
of a high school is more the equivalent of a university.

2 A position not strictly comparable to any we have in this country.
Its nearest approach is that of president of a university.

123

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

full professorship, a private laboratory, a compulsory
lecture of once a week and perfect freedom the rest of
the time, and an income quite sufficient for modest wants.
This he also refused. His countrymen, now quite con-
vinced that the world outside of Sweden was ready to
acclaim him as one of Sweden's greatest sons, invited
him to become Director of the Nobel Institute for
Physical Chemistry in Stockholm, a post he still holds.
Recently (1919) he was elected vice-president of the
Nobel Board of Trustees.

Arrhenius's training, as we have seen, had as much —
and more — of physics and mathematics, as chemistry.
His great teacher, Edlung, whose electrical problems led
him to cosmogenic ones also, probably fired Arrhenius
with a desire to invade the domain of astronomy. At
the Stockholm High School he gave a course of lectures
on cosmic physics, embracing the heavens, earth and
atmosphere, which were published in 1901 in a volume
of over one thousand pages. This led him to problems
which were insoluble if the views then held were applied.
The key to much of his difficulty he found in introducing
the conception of " radiation pressure " — a pressure
exerted by rays of light, of heat or of any other kind of
radiation when falling upon a surface. With this con-
ception in mind, Kelvin's and Helmholtz's theory of
panspermia — that life-giving seeds drift about in space—
gains in probability; for, by the introduction of " radi-
ation pressure," the difficulty of explaining how germs
transported from one planet to another in a time through
which their life can be preserved, is largely removed.

Solar systems, according to Arrhenius, are evolved
from nebulae by collision of suns. Around newly-
formed suns there circulate smaller celestial bodies which
cool more rapidly than the central sun. " When these
satellites have provided themselves with a central crust,

124

SVANTE ARRHENIUS

which will partly be covered by water, they may, under
favorable conditions, harbor organic life, as the earth
and probably also Venus and Mars do."

Arrhenius agrees with Helmholtz in denying the trans-
formation of inorganic*matter to organic matter endowed
with "life." Helmholtz in 1871 said: "It seems to
me a perfectly just procedure, if we, after the failure
of all our attempts to produce organisms from lifeless
matter, put the question, whether life has had a begin-
ning at all, or whether seeds have not been carried from
one planet to another and have developed everywhere
where they have fallen on fertile soil."

This theory of panspermia, as further developed by
Arrhenius, postulates that the seeds of life, floating in
space, occasionally encounter planets, and, provided the
condition on these planets is favorable, these seeds, so
deposited, may blossom further.

If one remembers that the spores of many bacteria
are about one millionth of an inch in diameter, it is
conceivable that the radiation pressure of a sun would be
sufficient to start them off into space.

A body moving at the average speed of a train, say
thirty-seven miles an hour, would take one hundred and
fifty years to go from the earth to Mars, and seventy
thousand million years from the solar system to the
nearest fixed star, Alpha Centauri. This seems a trifle
long for a germ to remain alive! However, the con-
ception of radiation pressure as a force reduces the time
to twenty days and nine thousand years respectively.

Twenty days seems reasonable, but nine thousand
i years! Here again other factors must be taken into
'consideration — the intense cold, light, dryness, etc., in
interstellar space. Both biology and chemistry give
Arrhenius' s fertile mind a helping hand.
10 125

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

To begin with, spores of bacteria have been kept for
more than six months at two hundred degrees (centi-
grade) below zero without appreciable injury, Further,
germs of splenic fever, for example, have been shown by
Roux, of the famous Pasteur Institute in France, to
remain intact by means of light in a vacuum — a condition
somewhat comparable to that existing in interstellar
space. Over sulphuric acid, one of the most powerful
substances for absorbing moisture, spores have been
kept for twenty weeks without losing their vitality.

And now for the climax, with the physico-chemist to
the forefront!

It is well known that all chemical reactions are con-
siderably reduced at low temperatures. A fall of ten
degrees (centigrade) reduces the speed of a reaction in
the ratio of five to two. " The loss of vitality in inter-
stellar space at two hundred and twenty degrees below
zero would be more than one hundred million times less
rapid than the loss at ten degrees — which means that a
journey of three million years through space would be
no more injurious than a single day of exposure to ter-
restrial spring temperature." So what's a mere nine
thousand years!

In Arrhenius's books, Worlds in the Making, and
The Destiny of the Stars, these fascinating problems
which fire the imagination are treated at length.

It needs to be emphasised here that the meteoric
theories of Kelvin, Helmholtz and Arrhenius, while
giving us an idea as to the mode of transportation of
germs, are irrelevant in so far as origin goes, for in their
attempt to explain the first sign of life on this planet they
presuppose the existence of a germ elsewhere. Merely
to say that life has had no beginning is begging the
question. If we must have a hypothesis — and this for
thinking men is too irresistible — we might as well be as

126

SVANTE ARRHENIUS

bold as Schafer, the Edinburgh physiologist, who holds
that life originated as a result of the gradual evolution
of inanimate material. In process of time the simple
substance became more and more complex and ulti-
mately emerged as the living germ — the nitrogenous
colloid.

But Schafer goes a step further. Why are we to
suppose that this happened but once, as all theories with
regard to origin have thus far assumed? Why are we
to suppose that at one time in the dim past a series of
fortunate accidents made life possible? Is it not more
logical to assume that these evolutionary processes are
going on to-day and will continue to do so?

Though even Huxley was of the opinion that at one
time there was " an evolution of living protoplasm from
not living matter," the idea that we should not relegate
the process to some remote period in the past is a com-
paratively new one, and has not by any means received
the approval of many otherwise loyal chemico-physiolo-
gists. These argue, with no small show of reason, that
continuous life production would imply similar terrestrial
conditions throughout the ages; and this we know not
to be the case.

The ultra-scientific view, of which Schafer is a shining
example,1 is based primarily upon analogy — a very
valuable method provided its limitations are not abused,
and provided, also, sufficient experimental data are at
i hand. The movement of oil drops and the interchange
1 of substance hi osmosis are certainly quicksand founda-
tions upon which to build inter-relationship theories of
the animate and the inanimate. This superficial con-
nection between these physical changes and life processes
fails to stand the test of adaptation and coordination — to
' name but two characteristic features of the vital sub-
1 See also Prof. Jacque Loeb's Mechanistic Conception of Life.
127

i

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

stance. Indeed, our knowledge is so remarkably ex-
tensive that we cannot as yet state the simplest vital
manifestation in terms of science.

If, then, Arrhenius and all others, have failed to solve
the riddle as to the origin of life, he has practically
solved the mystery of the transfer of life from one planet
to another — which in itself is a great triumph.1

If Arrhenius has thought on the subject of life in
interstellar space, he has also given attention to the
possible better understanding of the living organism by
the application of his refined physico-chemical methods
to it. In his two books, Quantitative Laws in Biological
Chemistry and Immuno- Chemistry, his views are
elaborated in a highly suggestive way.

In the preface to the first of these he says: "The
development of chemical science in the last thirty years
shows a steadily increasing tendency to elucidate the
nature and reactions of substances produced by living
organisms."

The problem has been attacked in two ways— (a) by
the organic chemist, such as Fischer or Kossel, who has
elucidated the structure of the molecule, and (b) the
physico-chemist, who investigates the nature of chemical
processes. Biochemists, says Arrhenius, have thus far
shown themselves to be averse to the second method.2

" Biological chemistry cannot develop into a real
science without the aid of the exact methods offered by
physical chemistry [quite true]. The aversion shown by

1 It should be added tliat the several romantic touches in Arrhe-
nius's cosmic studies have made many scientists hesitate to accept
his views without reserve. On the whole, it does seem as if
Arrhenius's reputation will rest more on his theory of electrolytic
dissociation than on his astronomical work.

2 This, by the way, is not true any more. In America, particu-
larly, the physico-chemist as physiologist is not rare; witness
Jacques Loeb, L. J. Henderson, D. D. van Slyke, K. G. Falk, etc.

128

SVANTE ARRHENIUS

bio-chemists [in the past] who have in most cases a
medical education [this is certainly not true either of
America or England] to exact methods is easily under-
stood. . . . The physical chemists have found that the
biochemical theories, which are still accepted in medical
circles, are founded on an absolutely unreliable basis,
and must be replaced by other notions agreeing with the
fundamental laws of general chemistry."

Arrhenius's work in this field has been largely hi
immuno-chemistry — that which deals with the protective
agents developed by a body when a toxin, or poison, is
injected into the system. The most celebrated attempt
to explain the mechanism of this reaction — which since
yon Berhing's immortal studies have largely absorbed
tne labors of many bacteriologists — is that known as
the Ehrlich " side-chain " theory, which, in its sim-
plest terms, tells us that each toxic substance has two
groups attached to it — a " toxophore " group, with
which it exerts its poisonous effects, and a " hapto-
phore " group, by means of which it attaches itself to
the " receptor " group which is found in every cell,
the " heptaphore " and the " receptor " just fitting
one another. This combination of cells in the body and
the toxins leads to an extra production of " receptor "
groups, some of which are thrown off and appear in the
blood stream. It is these which constitute the anti-
bodies— the protective bodies of the organism.

Ehrlich was of the opinion that the toxin and anti-
toxin neutralise one another in much the same way that
a strong base neutralises a strong acid. Arrhenius,
however, combats this view, claiming that the union is
of a much looser type, belonging to a class known as
" reversible reactions." He compares it rather to the
union of a weak acid and a weak base, and has applied
a well-known mathematical equation in chemical

129

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

dynamics which goes under the name of Guldberg and
Waage's Law of Mass Action.

It should, however, be added that experimenters are
not wanting — and they are physico-chemico-bacteri-
ologists and not necessarily medical men — who regard
the toxin-antitoxin combination in the light of an " ad-
sorption " phenomena, — in some such way, say, that
animal charcoal removes colored impurities from vinegar
or a raw sugar solution.

By 1909, the 25th anniversary of the publication of the
theory of electrolytic dissociation, all serious opposition
to the more important points in the theory had dis-
appeared, and when Ostwald decided to honor the
founder by dedicating a whole volume of the Zeitschrift
to him, many of the foremost leaders of chemical
thought contributed articles for the occasion. One may
mention Abegg, Bancroft (Cornell), Le Blanc (Leipzig),
Bodenstein, LeChatelier (Paris), Ciamician (Bologna),
Dawson, van Deventer (Amsterdam), H. Euler, H. C.
Jones (Johns Hopkins), W. Osfwald, G. Tammann,
A. E. Taylor (Pennsylvania), R. Wegscheider (Vienna)
and H. J. Hamburger.

The reaction of the theory of electrolytic dissociation
on the chemists who witnessed its birth and watched
its growth was well expressed by Sir William Tilden hi
1914, when Arrhenius was the recipient of the Faraday
Medal of the English Chemical Society: " With regard
to the theory of electrolytic dissociation, which has been
the subject of the discourse this evening, my experience,
perhaps, is very much that of a good many others, and
probably the majority in this room. When it first began
to be discussed seriously, close upon twenty years ago,
I confess I was among those who were strongly hostile.
But I felt, as tune went on, that I had to lay before my
students ... at any rate an exposition of what other

130

SVANTE ARRHENIUS

people believed in regard to this department of the theory
of chemistry; and it was my experience that by merely
presenting these views, so new and so unacceptable as
they were to me at that time, I gradually got to feel that
they were inevitable, and that they were absolutely
necessary. ..."

Even his own countrymen, with the weight of foreign
authority entirely against them, could no longer ignore
Arrhenius, and to attack him was no longer safe for one's
reputation; so they compromised and presented him
with the Nobel prize !

We in America are justly proud of the fact that we
were among the earliest to recognise this genius from
the north of Europe. He has received and has accepted
a number of invitations to lecture here and to enjoy
our hospitality. In 1904, at the St. Louis Exposition
Arrhenius was one of a group of distinguished foreign
visitors which also included Ramsay, van't Hoff, Moissan
Ostwald and Hugo Pe Vries. As late as 1911 he gave
a series of lectures at our principal university centers.
Fairly tall and bulky and robust, he suggests more the
prosperous business man than the dried-up philosopher.
Like his German and his French, his English, aside from
an accent, is clear and correct, and his thoughts are
expressed with little effort in this foreign tongue of his.
His lectures are like his books — his sentences give rise
to pages of reflection.

The Dutch and the Swedes counting, politically, among
the smaller European powers, have given the world two
of the greatest, if not the two greatest chemists of our
time. Happy will be that nation that will be in a posi-
tion to replace every Krupp factory with a great uni-
versity and every super-dreadnaught with a van't Hoff
or an Arrhenius !

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

References

Some of the sources of information are private. A de-
lightful account of the origin and development of the
theory of electrolytic dissociation has been given by
Arrhenius himself in a lecture delivered to the Chicago
members of the American Chemical Society in 1911, on
the occasion of the presentation of the Willard Gibbs
Medal to him (i) . Wilhelm Ostwald contributed a char-
acteristically striking portrait of the man and his work
when the 25th anniversary of the publication of Arrhen-
ius's classical paper was celebrated (2). The late Prof.
H. C. Jones, a pupil of Ostwald, van't Hoff and Arrhen-
ius, has some good touches of all three in his book,
The New Era in Chemistry (3). Cohen, in his van't
Hoff (4) devotes much space to the rare friendship which
existed between the great Dutch and Swedish masters.

Arrhenius's classical paper on the theory of electro-
lytic dissociation (5) has been translated into English by
Jones (6). Arrhenius himself is responsible for a
volume on the theory of solutions (7). The influence
Arrhenius's theory has had in laying the foundations for
our modern chemistry is well exemplified in the volumes
by Smith (8) and Stieglitz (9).

Cosmic problems are discussed in 10 and n, and bio-
and immune-chemistry, in 12 and 13.

1. Svante Arrhenius: Electrolytic Dissociation. Journal of the

American Chemical Society, 34, 353 (1912)*

2. Wilhelm Ostwald: Svante August Arrhenius. Zeitschrift fur

physikalische Chemie (Leipzig), 65, V (1909).

3. H. C. Jones: New Era in Chemistry (D. Van Nostrand Co.

4. Ernst Cohen: Jacobus Henricus van't Hoff (Akademische

Verlagsgesellschaft, Leipzig. 1912).

5. Svante Arrhenius: Ueber die Dissociation der in Wasser

gelosten Stoflfe. Zeitschrift fur physikalische Chemie, 1,
631 (1887).

132

SVANTE ARRHENIUS

6. H. C. Jones: The Modern Theory of Solution (Harper and

Brothers. 1899).

7. Svante Arrhenius: Theories of Solution (Yale University Press.

1912).

8. Alexander Smith: Introduction to Inorganic Chemistry (The

Century Co. 1917).

g. Julius Stieglitz: The Elements of Qualitative Analysis (The
Century Co. 1913).

10. Svante Arrhenius: Worlds in the Making (Harper and Brothers.

1908).

11. Svante Arrhenius: The Destinies of the Stars (G. P. Putnam's

Sons. 1918).

12. Svante Arrhenius: Quantitative Laws in Biological Chemistry

(G. Bell and Sons, London. 1915).

13. Svante Arrhenius: Immuno-Chemistry (Macmillan Co. 1907).

133

HETTCY MOISSAN

year 1907 was a particularly sad one
for the world of science. Within a few
months of Moissan's death science lost
such intellectual giants as Perkin, Men-
deleeff, Berthelot, the French chemist, Boltzmann, the
Austrian mathematical physicist, Sir Michael Foster,
the English physiologist, and Prof. Marshall Ward, the
English botanist.

In the history of chemistry France occupies a proud
position. One of her sons, Lavoisier of immortal mem-
ory, is the founder of the science of modern chemistry.
Another, Berthollet, had much to do with developing a
chemical nomenclature. Berthollet's assistant and suc-
cessor, Gay-Lussac, has given us the celebrated law of
gases known by his name. Dumas was a master of
atomic weight determinations. Berthelot was a minister
of state, as well as a great authority on thermochemistry.
In St-Clajre Deville we have one of the founders of
physical chemistry. Pierre Curie had much to do with
the discovery of radium.

Moissan rightfully takes his place among such illus-
trious scholars. He began his labors at a tune when
chemists had all but deserted the field of inorganic
chemistry for the chemistry of the carbon compounds.
The cry had been raised that inorganic chemistry had
exhausted itself. Moissan's work soon convinced
people that the cry was a false one. Inorganic chemistry
had, and still has, rich fields for investigators. What
was needed was a man of genius ; and such a man was
found in the person of Moissan.

135

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

Starting with his isolation of fluorine, the most active
of the elements, and one closely allied to chlof ine of gas
cloud fame, Moissan, from a study of the compounds
of fluorine, was led to his celebrated experiment on the
artificial production of the diamond, and this latter hi
turn led to the electric furnace. With the electric fur-
nace, scores of hitherto scarcely known elements and
compounds were prepared; among them, calcium car-
bide, the source of acetylene.

Moissan's work, unlike many of the other great work-
ers in the field, had an immediate practical bearing
which the layman could appreciate. Thus the electric
furnace readily found a place in metallurgy, and the
need for acetylene gave rise to an immense calcium
carbide industry. Yet Moissan remained a compara-
tively poor man to the day of his death. His discoveries,
instead of being patented, were published hi the French
chemical journals, to be used by readers hi any way they
saw fit. He was a professor, and as such he was em-
ployed by, and worked for the people. The discovery
itself, and not what the discovery could bring to him,
counted with Moissan.

In this connection it is important to emphasise some-
thing else. One must not measure the greatness of a
man of science by the standard whether his work can
find immediate application hi everyday life. Were such
a test to be applied, very few great scientists would
remain. The application of the laws and discoveries of
science come with tune, — sometimes sooner, sometimes
later, but come they do. It is therefore particularly
difficult to point out the practical significance of the more
recent contributions to chemistry. Yet even here re-
sults often show themselves sooner than expected.
Thus, to take two cases at random, van't Hoff's profound
studies of chemical dynamics have had no small share in

136

HENRY MOISSAN

contributing to the solution of the synthesis of ammonia
from its elements; and Arrhenius's theory of electro-
lytic dissociation has opened up new vistas in biological
research.

Ferdinand Frederick Henri Moissan, to give nun his
full name, was born in Paris on September 28, 1852.
We can afford to be even a little more specific; we can
add that the name of the street was Rue Montholon,
and the number of the house, 5.

His father, a native of Toulouse, held a position
with the Compagnie des Chemins de Per de VEst.
His mother (nee Mitelle) belonged to an Orleans
family.

In 1864 the family moved to the small city of Meaux,
and here Henri was sent to the municipal school.

Among the teachers at the school was one, James,
who taught mathematics and the natural sciences. The
good directors were evidently of the opinion that while
it may take several men to master one subject such as
Greek, it probably does not take more than one to master
several subjects such as chemistry, physics, astronomy,
biology, etc. — with mathematics thrown in to give more
symmetry to the list. However, James was a very good
teacher, and he early recognised hi Moissan a boy out
of the ordinary. James offered to give Moissan private
lessons in addition to the instruction at school; this the
boy gratefully accepted.

In addition to James's exposition of the sciences,
Moissan had another helper in his father. His father's
particular science was chemistry, and Moissan began to
receive elementary instructions in chemistry when he
was fourteen years old. " J'avais commence a mani-
puler de Page de 14 a 15 ans," writes Moissan; " et
mes premieres legons de chimie, donnees par mon
pere, sont encore gravees dans ma memorie."

137

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

Probably because of financial difficulties, Moissan left
the school in 1870 without passing his university entrance
examination, to the keen disappointment of his teacher,
James.

Moissan set out for Paris. His preference for chem-
istry led him to seetf a position as an apprentice in a drug
store, or apothecary's shop. Such a position he found
at a pharmacist's located at the corner of Rue Pernelle
and Rue Saint-Denis; and here soon afterwards he
achieved his first victory over nature by saving a man's
life who had attempted suicide with a dose of arsenic.

Duties at the store gave no time for study, and with-
out passing several important examinations there was no
hope of ever becoming a pharmacist.

At this point it is perhaps necessary to inform some
readers that the pharmacist hi France or Germany is
one who has gone through a much more thorough course
of training in preparation for the practise of his profession
than the druggist (self-styled " chemist ") in England
or America. As a matter of fact, the pharmaceutical
student is very much of a university student, and his
training is correspondingly thorough.

Moissan had a school chum, Jules Plicque, who
attended Deherain's lectures at the Musee d'Histoire
Naturelle, and Plicque told Moissan wonderful things
of Deherain and the Museum. Moissan paid more and
more attention to these accounts. He was ambitious;
he wanted to become a real scientist, and for this, further
schooling was necessary.

Moissan quit his " job " in 1872 and went to Fremy
at the Musee. He supported himself as best he could
by giving private lessons, and lived in the hope that some
day he would be an industrial chemist making as much
as 3,600 francs per year! Three thousand six hundred
francs was the very maximum to which this lad of twenty

138

HENRY MOISSAN

aspired. How poor financially he was then can well be
imagined.

Two years later Moissan exchanged Fremy for De-
herain, the teacher of his friend Plicque. Deherain
soon took notice of Moissan. The young man's leaning
towards industrial chemistry was not discouraged by his
teacher, but hopes were also held out that good work,
coupled with the fulfilment of several university require-
ments, might lead to an academic position.

An academic position was what Moissan wanted far
more than any industrial one, but until then the poor
lad had thought any such goal entirely beyond his
reach.

He now prepared actively for his university degrees.
For the time being much of the chemistry work had to
give place to the classics and physics — subjects which he
had neglected since his school days. In 1874, after
several attempts, he obtained his bachelor's degree,1
and in 1877, his Licencie es Sciences.

Even during these days of hardship life had its bright
spots. At the Museum he formed a close friendship
with Vesque, the botanist, and Etard, the chemist; and
during his army service at Lille in 1876 he got to know
Beclere, Siredey and Walter, all three medical men.
These six formed a very close circle. Not only was
science fostered among them, but literature and the
arts were also cultivated.

This intellectual group proved of immense value to
Moissan, whose irregular education needed polish to
round it out. He acquired a taste for painting, sculpture,
historical studies and belles-lettres, and incidentally

1 To get a bachelor's degree at the University of Paris, or at an
English university — particularly London, exhaustive final examina-
tions, theoretical and practical, have to be passed. It is not unusual
even for good students to fail in their first attempt.

139

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

mastered his own language in a way which was of in-
valuable help to him later as lecturer and writer.

This love of literature led the young man to attempt
the writing of a play — so often an emotional outlet for
the youths below and above twenty. The play must
have had merits, for it came near being produced at the
Odeon. Perhaps it was as well that the play was not
produced, for it might have made him neither a good
dramatist nor a good chemist. " Je crois que j'ai
mieux fait de faire de la chimie," was Moissan's own
comment.

The days of youth and health and hope are always
delicious memories. Moissan loved to recall the times
when he and his friends, poor in pocket but rich in mind,
lived and laughed and were happy. Vesque, who, with
his violin, gave meaning to Beethoven, did much to
spiritualise the souls of the little company.

Deherain being interested in plant physiological chem-
istry, Moissan's first research naturally fell in this field.
It dealt with the interchange of oxygen and carbon di-
oxide in the leaves of plants, and was used as a part
thesis for the apothecary's license.

But even during the progress of this research Moissan
had decided not to specialise in organic chemistry.
Deherain's advice against such a step did not change
Moissan's decision; the young man wished to turn
his attention to inorganic chemistry. But did Moissan
know that inorganic chemistry offered but a barren
field? No matter, said Moissan, it can still be culti-
vated.

We are not sure just what led Moissan to such a
happy choice. Perhaps Dumas' complaint in 1876 had
something to do with it. " Notre pays," said Dumas,
" tient largement sa place en chimie organique, il
neglige trop la chimie de corps inorganiques."_ And

140

HENRY MOISSAN

what was true of France was true of the rest of Europe.
Yet even France had a man, St. -Claire Deville, whose
fame did not rest upon his organic chemistry researches.
Neither, however, did they deal with the purely inorganic,
for the vast subject of dissociation belongs to a third
branch of the science — physical chemistry.

Whatever the reason, nothing could have been more
fortunate. What the renaissance was to the revival of
learning in Europe, Moissan became to the revival of
inorganic chemical scholarship in the universities and
factories.

Of his three hundred papers or so, almost every one
deals with experimental inorganic chemistry. Very few
touch even upon theory. They were published either
in the proceedings of the French Academy, in the
Annales de Chimie et de Phisique, or in the Bulletin
de la Societe chimique de Paris.

In 1879 Moissan obtained his diploma of Pharmacien
de premiere Classe, and in the following year he was
granted the degree of Docteur es Sciences physiques
with the presentation of a thesis on the oxides of chro-
mium— one of his earliest papers in his newly-chosen
field.

The first academic appointment came to him when he
was twenty-seven years old. It was as Repetiteur
[instructor] de Physique at the Agronomic Institute.
In the following year he was made Maltre de Con-
ferences [lecture assistant] and Chef des Travaux
Pratiques [senior demonstrator, or associate] at the
Ecole Superiore de Pharmacie.

Before he left the town of Mieux several years pre-
viously, Moissan became acquainted with one Lugan, a
pharmacist, and incidentally with his daughter. Lugan
had a perfect passion for chemistry, and hence followed
Moissan's career with much interest. Moissan on his
ii 141

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

side liked Lugan, Lugan's chemistry and Lugan's
daughter. In 1882 Moissan's courtship and prospects
had both made sufficient strides for marriage to appear
within the bounds of reason. The docteur was not
only accepted by Leoniey but Leonie's papa provided
comfortably for the pair.

With a stroke Moissan became the happiest of men.
The marriage proved as perfect as a marriage between
two human beings can possibly be, and the income pro-
vided by the father-in-law removed the chief source of
worry for the future. In 1885 a third member of the
family, Louis, joined them. " If I am not in my labor-
atory I want to be in my home." What better com-
mentary on the home atmosphere is needed than this
remark of Moissan's?

The work which, beginning in 1884, led Moissan to
his first great achievement, the isolation of fluorine, has
a history.

Fluorine in the form of its compounds had long been
known. Without ever having been isolated, the ele-
ment was included in the group of elements known as
the halogens, or salt producers, because its salts showed
striking similarities to salts of the rest of the group.
The commonest member of this family is chlorine, and
its sodium salt, sodium chloride, is the table salt so
indispensable as a food. The other elements belonging
to the halogens are bromine and iodine.

Chlorine was discovered as far back as 1774 by
Scheele, the famous Swedish chemist. In 1811 Courtois
discovered iodine in the ashes of sea-weed, and fifteen
years later Balard discovered bromine. It was not,
however, till 1886 that the fourth, and last member of
the family, fluorine, was isolated by Moissan. The
activity of this element — it is the most active (i.e.,

142

HENRY MOISSAN

chemically active) element known — had prevented its
isolation prior to this date.

Scheele himself, who was familiar with the acid de-
rived from fluorine, hydrofluoric acid, began experiments
on the latter substance towards the close of the eighteenth
century, but nothing came of them. Davy, the English
chemist, made an attempt in 1813 to isolate fluorine by
passing an electric current through hydrofluoric acid.
The method, with modifications, was successfully used
by Moissan later on; but in Davy's case the fluorine
was no sooner liberated than it attacked the water and
anything else that happened to be present, at the same
time being itself transformed into one of its compounds.
Gay-Lussac and Thenard were not more fortunate.

Knox, a Scotsman, spent three years on this problem,
and then had to go to Italy to recruit his health which
was shattered by the unavoidable inhalation of the vapors
of toxic gases. Louyet, another worker, died of their
effects. In 1850 Fremy, one of Moissan's teachers,
came near to success by his preparation of anhydrous
(that is, water-free) hydrofluoric acid.

Moissan attacked the problem in 1884 " in the un-
certain hope of at last being able to isolate the element."
By the distillation of a mixture of arsenious oxide, oil of
vitriol and fluorspar, he obtained a fluoride of arsenic
which, when electrolysed, gave him arsenic and a gas
which immediately attacked the platinum electrode.

Moissan now returned to Davy's and Fremy's experi-
ments. Davy's hydrofluoric acid alone would not do
because it contained water, and Fremy's anhydrous
| variety had the drawback in that it was a non-conductor
I of electricity. Moissan's success depended upon the
fact that the addition of potassium acid fluoride to the
anhydrous hydrofluoric acid converted the latter into a
conductor.

143

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

To withstand the action of fluorine, the apparatus was
made of an alloy of platinum and iridium, an extremely
expensive combination. Later, however, Moissan found
that copper could be substituted, for though the fluorine
attacks the copper, the resulting copper fluoride acts
as a protective coating, and prevents further disintegra-
tion of the vessel and loss of the fluorine.

On June 28, 1886, Debray, acting on behalf of Moissan
(who was not yet a member) announced to the French
Academy Moissan's isolation of fluorine. Such an
announcement was much too important to be passed
over without further notice. The president appointed
Berthelot, Debray and Fremy to investigate and report
on Moissan's work.

Lo and behold! in the presence of these august men
Moissan could not get any fluorine ! He tried and tried,
but no fluorine I The folio whig day the substitution of
new materials for old ones solved the difficulty, and soon
after that the Academy's representatives were convinced
of the legitimacy of Moissan's claim that he had really
succeeded in isolating this most elusive of all the
elements.

Moissan showed that no element was safe from the
attacks of fluorine; it readily combined with most of
them to form fluorides. But with Ramsay's " inert "
gases of the atmosphere, such as argon or helium, it
showed no action whatsoever.

Much later, in conjunction with Dewar, the famous
English experimenter on the liquefaction of gases,
Moissan succeeded in liquefying fluorine at a tempera-
ture of 185 degrees (centigrade) below zero; and even
at this temperature, though the liquid no longer has any
action on glass, it still attacks hydrogen and hydro-
carbons. This is remarkable, for we know that just
as an increase of temperature accelerates chemical reac-

144

HENRY MOISSAN

tion, so a decrease of temperature retards it. At 185°
below zero few, if any substances, have much chemical
action.

But another very remarkable fact must now be cited.
The researches of Victor Meyer in Germany, and par-
ticularly those of Dixon and Baker in England, have
shown that substances tend to combine less and less
the drier they are. If in addition to being absolutely
dry, the substances are also absolutely pure, it is ques-
tionable if any chemical reaction is at all possible. In
any case, in this connection it is interesting to note that
perfectly dry fluorine has no action on clean, dry
glass !

Moissan's researches on fluorine were published in
book form in 1891 and republished in 1914 as one of a
series belonging to Les Classiques de la Science.

Ostwald several years ago in his Klassiker commenced
the republication in pamphlet form of some of the more
classical researches in the history of chemistry. A
French committee consisting of H. Abraham, H. Gautier,
H. Le Chatelier and J. Lemoine, arranged for the French
public a Classiques comparable to the German Klassi-
ker. Beyond one or two sporadic attempts, nothing like
these have appeared in English. Why? Are we for-
ever to lag behind?

Before dismissing the subject of fluorine, it should be
added that recently W. L. Argo, an American electro-
chemist, has suceeded, by a modification of the Moissan
method, in getting fluorine easily and in quantity.

Moissan's success in isolating fluorine did not go
unrewarded. The Academy awarded him the Prix la
Caze prize of 10,000 francs, and soon afterwards (in
1886) he was appointed professor of toxicology at the
Ecole de Pharmacie^ in succession to Bouis, the dis-
coverer of caprylic alcohol. Now for the first time

MS

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

Moissan had his own laboratory — a small one, but yet
his own.

The isolation of fluorine was quickly followed up by
an exhaustive study of the combinations of fluorine with
other substances. Among these were the compounds of
fluorine with carbon. Moissan had dim hopes that by
utilising the activity of fluorine the carbon could be
separated in the crystalline form of diamond. Moissan
found that he could get two combinations of carbon and
fluorine, but these, when decomposed, left only common
carbon. This led him to a systematic study of the
varieties of carbon, and the methods of changing one
variety into another.

Diamond, graphite, lampblack, boneblack and large
percentages of coal and coke, are really nothing more than
different forms of one element, carbon. The chemist
gives the name " allo tropic " to such different forms of
one element. Allotropic elements show the same com-
position, though the internal structure of the atoms are
probably different. Diamond, graphite, lampblack, etc.,
when completely burned, all give carbon dioxide and
nothing else, proving the identity of these allotropic
forms.

It is easy enough to convert diamond into one of the
other forms of carbon by strongly heating it, but until
Moissan's time no one had succeeded in the reverse
process. Before, however, this could be accomplished,
Moissan had to devise some scheme for getting much
higher temperatures than were then available. This
led to his famous electric furnace.

In its simplest form (see diagram on the opposite
page) it consisted of two blocks of lime with central
cavities for the crucible containing the material to be
used, and horizontal cavities for the carbon electrodes.
The furnace measured some 6" x 6" x 7", and required

146

Moissan's electric furnace.

Moissan's apparatus for preparing fluorine. [Reproduced
from Moissan's books.]

HENRY MOISSAN

a current of four horse-power (about 60 amperes and
50 volts). With it Moissan obtained temperatures in
the neighborhood of 4000° Centigrade.

Now out in Arizona Dr. Foote, a mineralogist, had
shown that the Canyon Diablo meteorite contained
microscopic diamonds, and Moissan's careful study of
the possible formation of these precious stones led him
to the belief that they were formed from ordinary carbon
as a result of great pressure. Accordingly, in one of
his experiments Moissan heated some pure iron mixed
with carbon (obtained from the calcination of cane sugar)
in his electric furnace. The iron melted like wax at the
enormous temperature of the furnace, and dissolved
portions of carbon in much the same way that water
dissolves common salt.

After a few minutes at 4,000° centigrade, the crucible
containing the molten mixture was plunged into cold
water. In this way the outer surface of the iron cooled
more quickly than the inner portion, and thereby brought
a terrific pressure to bear upon the inner contents, still
in a liquid state. By this means, part of the carbon was
converted into the diamond form. After suitable re-
moval of various impurities, the residue, partly trans-
parent, partly black, and microscopic in size and amount,
was shown to possess the characteristic hardness of
diamond, as well as its crystalline structure (octahedral
facets).

However, the artificial production of the diamond, a
scientific fact to-day, is not a commercial success as
yet. The small size of the stones, and the cost of their
production, make it quite improbable that, for the present,
the laboratory of the chemist will attempt to compete
with nature's laboratory.

As with Madame Curie's discovery of radium several
years later, the artificial production of the diamond was

147

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

splendid material for newspaper gossip, and poor Mois-
san, the most modest of men, found himself lionised by
all Paris. Diamonds, said the newspapers, could be
made so easily by Henri Moissan, that they would soon
be had for the mere asking. What would the De Beers
Company in South Africa do?

Many of Moissan's subsequent experiments were
made with the help of the electric furnace. The pre-
liminary operations were first carried out at the works of
the Edison Company in Avenue Trudaine; later the
basement of the college was equipped for this purpose.

By means of the electric furnace and the high heat
thereby afforded, Moissan liquefied and volatilised such
metals as copper, silver, platinum, gold, tin, iron, etc.
Extensive researches on the combinations of the ele-
ments with carbon, boron and silicon to form carbides,
borides and silicides respectively, were carried out.
Perhaps the most notable of these was the preparation
of calcium carbide, which hi the presence of water yields
the important illuminating gas, acetylene. Moissan also
prepared silicon carbide, or carborundum, but he does
not seem to have attached any importance to this dis-
covery. The method of preparation was also a poor one.
The discovery of carborundum is therefore very right-
fully assigned to Acheson, the American industrial
chemist, who, working quite independently, and using
a much more practical method (sand and coke) for its
preparation, arrived at the same result, and immediately
took out a patent for the process.

The study of carbides also led Moissan to a theory of
the origin of petroleum. In brief, Moissan's view was
that water, acting on carbides, gave rise to various
hydrocarbons which, when mixed, constitute petroleum.

With the electric furnace as with fluorine, Moissan
embodied the results of his researches in book form

148

HENRY MOISSAN

under the title Le Four Electrique. In the preface to
this work we find an admirable spirit admirably ex-
pressed : " But what I cannot convey in the following
pages is the keen pleasure which I have experienced in
the pursuit of these discoveries. To plough a new
furrow; to have full scope to follow my own inclination;
to see on all sides new subjects of study bursting upon
me; that awakens a true joy which only those can
experience who have themselves tasted the delights of
research."

The work consists of four chapters. In the first,
various types of the electric furnace are discussed. In
the second, the results of studies on the three varieties
of carbon — the diamond, the graphite and amorphous
carbon — are recorded. Chapter three deals with the
preparation of several simple substances by means of
the electric furnace, and also describes researches on
the preparation of chromium, manganese, molybdenum,
tungsten, uranium, vanadium, zirconium, titanium,
silicon and aluminium.1 Chapter four describes the
preparation of various carbides, silicides and borides,
calcium carbide receiving particular attention.

In 1904 Moissan, as chief editor, published the
Traite de Chimie Mineraile, a comprehensive work (in
five volumes) on inorganic chemistry. His collaborators
numbered some of the most distinguished French
chemists, such as Gautier, Le Chatelier, Sabatier, etc.

It has been pointed out that in 1886 Moissan became
professor of toxicology at the School of Pharmacy. It
was not until thirteen years later that he succeeded to the
chair of " mineral " or inorganic chemistry. Strangely
enough, during all these years, though his research work

1 The f easability of preparing aluminium (or, as it is sometimes
called, aluminum) on a large scale was first successfully demon-
strated by Hall, an American, in 1886.

149

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

was pre-eminently inorganic, his lectures dealt with an
entirely different subject.

In 1900, on the retirement of Troost, Moissan was
unanimously chosen Professor of Inorganic Chemistry
in the Faculte des Sciences in the University of Paris;
he, however, retained his title of professor at the Ecole
de Pharmacie.

In 1888, as a result of his isolation of fluorine, Moissan
was elected a member of the Academy of Medicine.
Three years later Cahours* death left a vacant seat hi the
Academie des Sciences. To fill this place the names
of Moissan, Grimaux, Ditte, Jungfleisch and Le Bel
were submitted. After a discussion of two hours the
committee decided to nominate Moissan and Grimaux.
The latter was subsequently defeated by eleven votes,
and Moissan thereby became the confrere of Berthelot,
Friedel, Schiitzenberger and Troost. Election to the
Academy is the highest honor a French man of science
can attain in his own country.

In 1896 the English Royal Society awarded its Davy
Medal to Moissan, " in recognition," said the president,
Lord Lister, " of his great merits and achievements as
an investigator. The electric furnace of M. Moissan
has become the most powerful synthetical and analytical
engine in the laboratory of the chemist." Moissan,
proceeded the president, had obtained substances whose
very xeistence had been undreamt of. It was impossible
to foresee the bounds to this new field of Research.

In this same year the Royal Society awarded its
Copley medal to Carl Gegenbauer, the Heidelberg
anatomist, the Royal Medal to Archibald Geikie, " the
most distinguished British geologist," and the Rumford
medal was divided between Phillip Lenard and W. C.
JRontgen, whose work paved the way for the discovery
of radium several years later.

150

HENRY MOISSAN

In 1903 Moissan was selected as Hofmann Medallist
of the German chemical society; and in 1906 he was
awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry. The other
Nobel winners for 1906 were J. J. Thomson, the dis-
tinguished English physicist, Camillo Golgi, of Pavia and
Ramon y Cajal, of Madrid — both anatomists, Carducci,
the Italian poet, and Theodore Roosevelt.

" Moissan," says Ramsay, who knew him well, " was
a practised speaker and a perfect expositor. His lectures
at the Sorbonne were crowded with enthusiastic students,
all eager to catch every word, and he kept their attention
for one and three quarter hours at a time by a clear,
lucid exposition, copiously illustrated by well-devised
experiments.

" His command of language was admirable ; it was
French at its best. The charm of his personality and
his evident joy in exposition gave keen pleasure to his
auditors. He will live long in the memories of all who
were privileged to know him, as a man full of human
kindness, of tact, and of true love of the subject which
he adorned by his life and work."

At five in the afternoon the doors of the big lecture
room were opened, and the students made a rush for
front seats. For the next fifteen minutes, until the
appearance of the professor, the young men passed the
time by shouting and singing songs. Punctually at five-
fifteen Moissan would walk in, and immediately a pro-
longed sh — sh — resounded through the hall. Woe to
the student who made his appearance after five-fifteen!
The booing and stamping left the late intruder in no false
notion as to the opinions of his fellow-students.

Moissan was little of a speculator. His papers are
remarkably free of theories; they record merely the
work done in the laboratory, and the conclusions to be
drawn from such work. But it does not follow that

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

Moissan had no definite goal in mind, or that he failed
to grasp the significance of facts and theories. On the
contrary, few men have followed up clues so systemati-
cally, or drawn such sound conclusions from their work.
But Moissan was essentially a " practical " man, who
loved to handle things in the laboratory, rather than
speculate about them in his office. He is the author
of no hypothesis, of no theory; — certainly of no law;
but as an experimenter few have rivalled him.

" Je me suis applique*," wrote Moissan, " a cultiver
cette chimie minerale que l'o# croyait epuisee, et je
pense que mes travaux, ainsi que le belle reserches des
savants anglais, ont pu demontrer que cette science
reserve encore bien des decouvertes a ceux qui voudront
1'aimer et Petudier avec tenacite"."

Moissan's fame attracted foreign students, particu-
larly after his invention of the electric furnace, which
opened up such vast possibilities in research at uni-
versities and industrial plants. In 1899, in addition to
a number of French workers, Moissan had in his research
laboratory two Germans, one Austrian, one Englishman,
one American and two Norwegians.

Despite research which was often not quantitative in
character, and usually planned on an industrial scale,
Moissan insisted upon scrupulous cleanliness in the
laboratory. A few drops of water on the laboratory
floor would make Moissan exclaim, " Qui a fait cela? "
He certainly gave the lie to Riess's remark that chem-
istry is the dirtiest part of physics!

With his wife and his son, Louis — his only child —
Moissan spent his vacations travelling through pictur-
esque parts of Europe. But as a representative of the
French Academy, his trips were often extended to include
centers of learning. Thus in 1904 we find him at the
St. Louis Exposition in company with such distinguished

152

HENRY MOISSAN

foreign delegates as Hugo de Vries, Ramsay, Arrhenius,
Ostwald, etc.

Moissan died in 1907 from an acute attack of appendi-
citis. There can be little question that the inhalation
of toxic gases such as fluorine and carbon monoxide —
the latter a by-product of the electric furnace — shortened
his life by a number of years.

" My life," said Moissan towards the close of his
career, " has been of the simplest — happy in my labor-
atory and in my home."

G. B. Shaw, in his preface to Overruled, tells us that
"industry is the most effective check on gallantry."
That certainly helps to explain why research workers in
science are, almost without an exception, very happily
married.

On August 10, 1915, Louis, Moissan's only son, died
on the field of battle. The young man who, prior to the
outbreak of the war, was an assistant at the college
made famous by his father, the Ecole de Pharmacie,
left to this institution the capital sum of 200,000 francs
for the foundation of two prizes — one for chemistry (prix
Moissan), and one for pharmacy (prix Lugan),'m memory,
respectively, of his father and mother (nee Lugan).

References

Paul Lebeau, one of Moissan's assistants, wrote a
very comprehensive review of the life and labors of his
master (i). Alfred Stock, another of Moissan's stu-
dents, is the author of an equally good obituary notice (2).
Sir William Ramsay's Moissan Memorial Lecture (3)
is a rather poor specimen of the gifted Englishman's
productions.

Moissan's researches on fluorine have been published
in book form (4). His work on the electric furnace (5)

153

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

devotes a chapter to his experiments on the diamond.
Sir William Crooke's article on artificial gems in the
Encycl. Britannica (6) is well worth consulting.

z. Paul Lebeau: Henri Moissan. Bulletin de la societe chimique
de France (Paris), 3, i (1908).

2. Alfred Stock: Henri Moissan. Berichte der deutchen chem-

ischen Gesellschaft (Berlin), 40, 5099 (1907).

3. Sir William Ramsay: Moissan Memorial Lecture. Journal of

the Chemical Society , 101, 477 (1912).

4. Henri Moissan: Le Fluor (Libraire Armand Colin, Paris. 1914).

5. Henri Moissan: Le Four Electrique (G. Steinheil, Paris. 1897).

6. Encycl. Britannica, nth ed.

MARIE SKLODOWSKA CURIE

^NCE," says Anatole France, " has two
geniuses — Rodin and Madame Curie."
The foremost scientist of France, and the
greatest woman scientist in the history of
mankind, she counts politically less than many a man
fit for the lunatic asylum. And as if to encourage that
conception of woman to which so many men cling
tenaciously, the French Academy, numbering among its
members the elite of French intellect, decide that
woman, be she ever so much a genius, cannot be ad-
mitted into their sanctum. If further proof were
needed that intellect often runs counter to freedom,
and that scientists who work so strenuously for an en-
largement of their scientific horizon often belong to
the most reactionary group in politics, the case of
Madame Curie affords an excellent example.

Within the space of ten short years this woman
has created a new science, radioactivity, and this has
opened up more fertile chemical soil than any other
discovery in the history of science. It has given us the
first clear insight into the chemist's promised land, the
nature and possible structure of the atom, and holds
possibilities which could hardly have been hoped for
from the accumulated labors of scientists during the
last hundred years. In speed of progress radioactivity
is to the science which has gone before what the aero-
plane is to the tortoise.

This momentous discovery belongs to Madame Curie.
To be sure, the way was paved for her by many; to be
sure, her husband was a good helpmate; but in spite of
12 i55

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

analogous work in various parts of the world by the
world's most gifted scientists, this woman triumphed
where all others failed, and to her belongs the reward.
Since her great discovery towards the close of the
? eighteenth century, her researches on radioactivity have
but added to her glorious reputation, so that to-day she
stands crowned as the greatest woman and among the
very greatest scientists of all times.

The inherent qualities which go to the making of
genius certainly never have been the exclusive posses-
sion of half mankind, but whereas the male geniuses
have, at times, been allowed to blossom, the females
belonging to this species, have until recently, been sup-
pressed with a Cossack's ferocity and a Cossack's
justice. The past four years of critical history from
which mankind has just emerged will, perhaps, help to
remove the mental fog which has incapacitated many a
man from using his brains to the advantage of himself
and of the world.

Madame Marie Sklodowska Curie was born in Var-
sovie or Warsaw, Poland, on November 7, 1867. Her
father, Dr. Sklodowski (" squadoffski " — to give it the
Polish pronunciation) was a professor in the gymnasium
of the town, and locally known as a good teacher and
sound scholar. The death of her mother left little
Marie much adrift, though a brother and sister were
there to share the misery; and were it not that from
her earliest years a magnetic force attracted her to the
father's laboratory, Marie would have been left much to
herself, for her father's life was his work. As it was,
the girl's love for science made the father her wor-
shipper, and until she was old enough to attend school,
Dr. Sklodowski was her sole teacher.

The part of Poland in which Marie lived had become
part of Russia, the two remaining portions having gone

156

MARIE SKLODOWSKA CURIE

to Russia's appetizing neighbors, Germany and Austria.
It was bad enough for a Russian to have lived in Russia
under the Czar's regime, but for the Pole conditions
were about as intolerable as for the Jew, and the sensi-
tive girl, fired by her father's patriotism, came to hate
the Russian persecutors with the zeal of a religious
fanatic. Revolution was in the air; everybody who was
anybody — the Pole and the Finn because of the Russian,
and the Russian because of the autocracy— was a revo-
lutionist, ready at any time to taste misery in Siberia
for the holy cause. Marie joined the ranks. Meetings
were held, plans drawn, and prayers offered for the
success of the independent movement. Unfortunately,
the police got wind of the affair. A number of Dr.
SklodowskL's students were among the ringleaders, and
Marie herself was more than a mere onlooker.

This led to her decision to leave Poland. Her first
intention was to proceed to Cracow, the seat of an
historic university. Cracow, the ancient capital of
Poland, was now part of the Poland belonging to Austria,
whose rule, however, was quite benevolent as compared
to the rule of her Russian neighbor. Here, unlike
Warsaw, the Polish language was allowed, and Polish
history and literature cultivated.

But Marie had visions. She wanted a bigger uni-
versity still, and a bigger town, yet a town that would
remind her of her beloved Warsaw. Paris was such a
place. Even as far back as 1810 Napoleon had recog-
nised the relationship, for he said, " Varsovie
petite Paris." To Paris then went Mile. Sklodofska,
just as many of her countrymen had done before.

Times change. In those days Mile. Sklodofska would
hardly have dared to hope that within fifty years her
beloved fatherland would come into its own again, and,
as a buffer power between Russia and Germany, help to

157

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

preserve the peace of Europe. Chopin and Sienkiewicz
no longer live to witness this glorious day, but Conrad
from London and Mme. Curie from Paris can watch
Poland's revival and its effort to rehabilitate itself
among the nations.

Miss Sklodof ska did not arrive in Paris as a conquering
hero. Far from it. Her pockets were empty and her
acquaintances few. She established herself in the
" east side " section of the town, in a small back room,
four flights high, to which she carried her own coal.
Her diet consisted of bread and milk for so long that,
as she herself has said, she had to acquire anew the
taste for wine and meat. Ten cents were her daily
expenses, and this she made largely by private tutoring,
and later, by preparing the furnace and washing bottles
at the Sorbonne.

To other geniuses, Ramsay and van't Hoff, for ex-
ample, such struggles were unknown. They were given
what they wanted and were encouraged to do their best.
The struggle for existence was not a problem to them.
To Mme. Curie, once outside her father's home, this
struggle became paramount. Yet to conclude from this,
as many wiseacres are fond of telling us, that the struggle
made the woman, is as near the truth as to conclude
that its absence made Ramsay or van't Hoff. Material
comforts make the path easier, and their absence make
it infinitely more difficult. That Madame Curie did not
succumb, as many another budding genius has under
like circumstances, is an accident as a result of which
the world has been made much the wiser.

In those days the head of the physical science depart-
ment at the Sorbonne was Gabriel Lippmann, whose
pioneer work in color photography is known wherever
physics flourishes. He was attracted by the superior
knowledge which Miss Sklodof ska showed in the execu-

158

MARIE SKLODOWSKA CURIE

tion of her work, which developed from washing bottles
to setting up apparatus. Henri Poincare, the great
mathematical philosopher, and a brother of the late
president of France, was another one upon whom this
young girl had made an impression. They acquainted
themselves with her history. Lippmann got into touch
with her father in Warsaw. The result was that Marie
was put into the hands of Pierre Curie, one of Lippmann's
most promising pupils.

Given a scholar, an impressionable young man, one
who had met few people and who had become absorbed
in his work, and a bright girl, with a personality, and a
keen interest in the same type of work; given further
that the man and the woman see one another daily for
the greater part of the day, and the possible outcome
might have been forseen. "What a grand thing it
would be to unite our lives and work together for the
good of science and humanity," runs one letter from
Pierre. "For the good of science and humanity"
smacks of too much altruism hi a marriage proposal,
but innocent Pierre Curie meant well, and Miss Sklodof-
ska understood and sympathised and accepted.

So in 1895 the two were married, both poor in life's
necessities, but rich in sympathy toward, and under-
standing of one another. Curie continued his re-
searches on the construction and use of electrometers
and condensers, and Mme. Curie assisted in this, and
also prepared herself for her degree. Within three years
she gained her licenciee &s Sciences mathematique et
es Sciences physiques, and unlike Pasteur or Ehrlich,
who made a poor impression on the examiners, Mme.
Curie passed her examination in brilliant style. Here
again no moral should be drawn; not all poor students
become Pasteurs, nor do all senior wranglers become
Curies.

159

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

We now come to Madame Curie's immortal piece of
work. To get the proper perspective a short introduction
is necessary.

From about 1860 on, many interesting but discon-
nected observations had been made on the passage of
electricity through a tube from which nearly all the air
had been pumped out. In 1879 Sir William Crookes
discovered that peculiar rays were emitted from the
negative pole, to which he gave the name "cathode
rays." Much later J. J. Thomson and others showed
that these rays were negative particles of electricity,
or " electrons," each electron weighing about one two-
thousandth that of the lightest atom known, namely
hydrogen.

Then, in 1895, came Rontgen's discovery of the X-
rays by impinging the cathode rays on the walls of a
glass vessel. The application to medicine of these
X-rays was immediately recognised when it was noticed
that they could penetrate flesh. Rontgen made the
further observation that the X-rays act on photographic
plates in their neighborhood.

One year later Becquerel, studying the general be-
havior of phosphorescent bodies, had occasion to ex-
amine the element uranium and its compounds, and
these substances gave off rays which resembled the
X-rays in their affect on a photographic plate. He
further made the extremely important observation that
the rays "ionised" the air about them; or, what is
the same thing, converted the air about them from an
insulator to a conductor of electricity. A gold-leaf
electroscope, which had been previously charged with
electricity so that its two leaves diverged, was dis-
charged with the consequent collapse of the leaves so
soon as uranium, or one of its compounds, was brought
near it.

160

MARIE SKLODOWSKA CURIE

This brings us to Madame Curie's work. Adopting
EecquerePs method of detecting the presence of these
rays by their action on a gold-leaf electroscope, she made
a systematic investigation of various elements and their
compounds with the view to finding whether any of
them possessed this ray-emitting power. Only one
other apart from uranium, namely thorium, was found
to possess such a property.

But the next observation was a momentous one.
Madame Curie noticed that a sample of pitchblende, a
mineral from which most of the uranium is extracted,
showed an activity which was four to five times as great
as the activity produced by the total amount of pure
uranium that could be extracted from this sample.

There was but one thing to conclude from this, and
that was that some other element, more active than
uranium, was present in the pitchblende.

The work until this point had been done by Madame
Curie exclusively. From now on her husband joined
her.

It required but little calculation to show that the un-
known element, if present in the ore, would be there in
extremely minute quantity; the importance, therefore,
of starting with large quantities of pitchblende in order
to extract the element from it was obvious.

Through the kindness of the Austrian government,
which owned the extensive uranium mines in Joachims-
thai, Bohemia, the Curies were presented with one ton
of pitchblende from which the uranium had been re-
moved.

Most of the common, and quite a number of the un-
common elements are present in pitchblende, so that
the analytical procedure of separating one element from
another, and examining each fraction so obtained, is a
tedious and difficult one.

161

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

The plan adopted by the Curies was to submit each
fraction to the electroscopic examination. Naturally the
greater the conductivity, the more active the fraction.
In this way a constant and invaluable check on the experi-
ments was always at hand.

The large quantity of raw material made it necessary
to conduct the initial experiments in a factory. The
quantities were gradually narrowed down until the test
tubes of the laboratory could hold them comfortably.
The fraction containing the common element bismuth
showed the presence of a powerful radioactive sub-
stance, which, after many trials, was partially separated
and named polonium, in honor of Madame Curie's
native country.

Further examination showed that the fraction con-
taining the element barium had even more powerful
radioactive properties, and by some of the most ex-
haustive and painstaking experiments in the history of
our science, recalling those of Welsbach on the rare
earths, Madame Curie succeeded in separating a salt
of barium from the salt of the new element, to which she
gave the name of radium. Radium as an element had
baffled all attempts at isolation in the pure state until
1910, when our heroine solved this problem, but even
the salt of radium showed itself to be two and a half
million times as active as uranium!

The radiations from radium were shown to ionise air,
to act on photographic plates, to change the color of
minerals and gems, to impart a deep violet color to the
glass tube which contained the radium salt, to convert
ordinary oxygen to its more active form, ozone, to pro-
duce traces of peroxide of hydrogen in the presence of
water, to destroy minute organisms, and to kill cells of
skins and produce sores.

162

MARIE SKLODOWSKA CURIE

That radium is really a new element, and not some
compound or mixture, is proved beyond doubt by the
very distinctive spectrum it gives. The wave-lengths
of the lines of this spectrum are mathematically con-
nected with the spectra given by the elements barium,
calcium and strontium, and this relationship, together
with its similarity in chemical property to barium, places
radium in the class of what are known as alkaline earth
metals.

The subsequent development of radioactivity has been
due to the labors of many workers in many countries.
Besides Madame Curie and her husband, one may
mention their assistant Debienne, Rutherford, Soddy
and Ramsay in England, and Boltwood in America.

The value of this work may be gauged by the recog-
nition these men have received. Rutherford has lately
succeeded J. J. Thomson to the Cavendish Professor-
ship of Physics at Cambridge, and Soddy has made
rapid jumps from a lectureship at Glasgow University
to a professorship at Edinburgh, and within the last few
months, to a newly-created chair of chemistry at Oxford.
Boltwood has been made director of the chemical depart-
ment at Yale University. The reputation of all three
rests primarily upon their researches in radioactivity.

A brief general account may now be given.

Radium gives off three types of rays, and these are
distinguished by the Greek letters a, (3, and y. The
a-rays have been shown to be atoms of helium which are
thrown off with a velocity of thirty thousand kilometers
per second, or about one tenth that of light. That
helium is one of the products obtained from radium has
been shown by the work of Ramsay and Soddy (which
see).

Unlike the a-particles, which are charged with positive
electricity, the g-particles are negatively charged (" elec-
ts

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

trons "), and are shot out with a velocity equivalent to
light. They are identical with Crookes' "cathode
rays."

A powerful magnetic field will bend the a-rays in
one direction and the (3-rays in the opposite direction.
The magnet has no effect upon the ^f-rays. These last
are identical with the X-rays. The X-rays are further
distinguished by their penetrating power. Whereas
the a-particles are stopped by a sheet of paper or alumi-
nium foil one two-hundred-and-fiftieth of an inch in
thickness, and the (3-rays pass through gold-leaf and
through aluminium foil up to two-fifths of an inch in
thickness, the f-rays penetrate thick layers of metals.

The stoppage of these various particles by the air
molecules with which they come in contact generates
much heat. One of the most remarkable things about
this remarkable element is that the temperature around
radium is about three degrees higher than the tempera-
ture beyond its immediate neighborhood. To put this
in another way, radium emits every hour enough heat
to raise the temperature of its own weight of water from
the temperature of ice to that of the boiling point of
water. And what is more amazing still, its heat-gen-
erating power seems to be inexhaustible.

In 1902 Rutherford and Soddy advanced their " dis-
integration " theory, which leads us to believe that the
a-particles obtained from radioactive elements such as
radium and uranium are due to the disintegration of the
atoms of these elements. All subsequent studies have
brilliantly confirmed their hypothesis. Whereas chemi-
cal changes are changes brought about between atoms,
radioactivity results from the changes within the atom,
and unlike chemical reactions, we have no known
methods of controlling radiactive changes. We cannot
start them and we cannot stop them. The temperature

164

MARIE SKLODOWSKA CURIE

of the electric arc is as ineffective as a temperature of
two hundred degrees below zero. No appliance known
to man, no operation known to the scientist, shows any
results which our senses can recognise.

This opens up a new area which in size to that already
explored may be compared to the size of America with
reference to the rest of the earth. Indeed, Madame
Curie is the Columbus who has discovered another con-
tinent in science.

For what are the possibilities? In the first place,
radium has had a profound influence in modifying our
views regarding the structure of matter. Dalton many
years ago had postulated in his Atomic Theory that
matter is made up of ultimate and indivisible particles
which he called atoms. These atoms are active in
chemical changes, but even in these changes the atoms
do not become subdivided. We still agree with Dalton
that chemical changes are brought about by atoms, and
that these atoms do not subdivide in the course of such
changes, but we can no longer say that the atom is the
smallest particle. Far from it. The later researches of
J. J. Thomson and others lead us to the belief that each
atom is a solar system unto itself, with a positively
charged nucleus for its sun, and negatively charged
electrons, representing the planets, etc., surrounding it.

The radioactivity of the elements thorium, uranium
and radium is due to the breaking up of their atoms,
with the consequent enormous liberation of energy.
Aside from these three, no other element shows any
such properties. May it not be possible, then, that in
the future some means will be found to cause the atoms
of other elements to disintegrate, and thereby to liberate
the enormous energy which must be stored in them?
Will the energy of the future depend upon this dis-
covery? The burning of coal is a chemical change, and

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

therefore extra-atomic; will the energy of the future be
intra-atomic?

One other factor must be touched upon. If a radium
salt is heated strongly, or dissolved in water and the
water evaporated, the residue seems to show little radio-
active power. If this residue be kept for a month it can
be shown to have recovered all its lost power. This
experiment can be repeated indefinitely.

If now the experiment is conducted a little more care-
fully, it can be shown that the initial loss of radioactivity
is due to the escape of a gas which evolves the rays, in
quality and quantity, that the residue has lost. This
gas or " emanation " was carefully examined by Ram-
say and shown to be a new element belonging to the
inert gases of the atmosphere, to which the name of
niton was given (see Ramsay).

The further interesting fact was brought out that on
standing, the " emanation " gradually loses its radio-
active power, and its rate of loss is strictly proportional
to the rate of gain of radioactive power in the solid
radium residue !

The transmutation of one element into another — the
dream of the alchemists when they wanted to transmute
the base metals into gold — is an established fact to-day.
Radium, we know, breaks up into two other elements,
niton and helium ; the niton breaks up still further into a
simpler element, and also gives off an atom of helium.1

1 Recently (June, 1919) Rutherford has performed some experi-
ments which lead him to the conclusion that when the element
nitrogen is bombarded with a-particles "the atoms arising from the
collision . . . are not nitrogen atoms, but probably charged atoms
of hydrogen [another element] . . ." The importance to be attached
to this observation is that for the first time since the discovery of
radioactivity, a method has been devised by which an element may
be deliberately converted into another element. Hitherto the ob-
served cases of transmutation — such as disintegration of radium cited
above — have been those over which man has so far had no control.

*

MARIE SKLODOWSKA CURIE

The process has been traced experimentally through
quite a number of stages, but the peculiar feature of this
disintegration process is that at each step an atom of
helium is set free. Why just helium? This is one of
several puzzles that awaits solution.

Coming to more immediate and practical considera-
tions, the application of radium in the treatment of a
number of diseases, particularly those due to growths,
such as cancer, has come to the foreground. Definite
cures have not yet been established, but many well-
endowed establishments, such as the Crocker Research
Institute of New York, and the Radium Institute in
Paris, are devoting much time and skill to experimental
conditions.

Such then is this fascinating study which has led us
on our journey from the minutest particles which the
eye can see (minute suspensions) to particles which the
eye can see only with the help of the most powerful
ultra-miscroscope (colloids), and then on to molecules
which are formed when a substance like sugar is dis-
solved in water, and which never have been seen by
mortal eye, and still further to the atoms formed when
molecules break up, and yet still further to the electrons
which result from the breaking up of atoms, and which
in size are one two-thousandth that of the lightest atom
known. If astronomy sees the infinitely big in such
distances as those from the earth to the nearest fixed star,
chemistry and physics approach the infinitely small in
comparing the size of man with that of the electron.

Madame Curie's pioneer work on radium lasted from
1898 to 1902 — some four years. In 1903 the results of
her work were presented to the Paris faculty in the form
of a thesis for the doctor of science degree. The title
page reads, These Presentee a la Faculte des Sciences

167

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

de Paris pour obtenir le grade de Docteur es Sciences
physiques.

This thesis, unlike Arrhenius's, was received with
acclamation. The reason for this is not hard to seek.
Arrhenius proposed a novel theory which very few were
prepared to understand. Madame Curie, on the other
hand, presented the results of experiments on a subject
which was engaging the attention of some of the best
minds in Europe. The world was prepared for it;
the world was not prepared for the theory of electrolytic
dissociation.

In the history of doctor's dissertations Madame
Curie's easily takes first place for importance of contri-
bution, with Arrhenius's as a close second; many of the
others — including even van't Hoff's and Ramsay's — have
unnecessarily taxed the shelf capacity of our libraries.

With a bound Mme. Curie leaped from complete ob-
scurity to the center of the world's stage. Unlike most
scientific theories or discoveries, radium lent itself freely
to sensational newspaper "write-ups," so that this modest
little woman was discussed in parallel columns with the
prominent politician and the stage beauty. Since
natural repugnance for the limelight made it impossible
for reporters to get interviews, the imagination came into
free play, and a halo of romance and mystery was thrown
over her. In the middle ages she might have been a
sorceress; now she was a wizard in science.

In the same year — that is, 1903 — Madame Curie and
her husband came over to London at the express invita-
tion of Lord Kelvin, and Monsieur Curie delivered an
address on radium at the Royal Institution. The Curies
were presented with the Davy Medal of the Royal Society.

How little known the Curies were until about 1903
is shown by the following account, due to Mrs. Hertha
Ayrton, herself a distinguished English physicist: "I

168

MARIE SKLODOWSKA CURIE

was chatting in the laboratory [in London] one day
about the year 1900, when a stranger entered, a Mon-
sieur Becquerel, whom I had known previously, and he
announced that he had with him a new element, * ra-
dium.' He produced a little packet containing a sub-
stance which he said was radium bromide. He sub-
jected the substance to a chemical test for our informa-
tion. Someone asked him who discovered it. He
replied, ' Madame Curie of Paris.' This was the first
time I had heard of Madame Curie."

Within the next few months the Nobel Prize, the
highest mark of distinction that can come to any scientist,
was divided between the Curies and Becquerel.

In the following year Madame Curie was appointed
Chef de Travaux, or chief of the laboratory, in the
department at the Sorbonne that was especially created
for her husband.

For two more years were M. and Mme. Curie to live
together, loving and working, and living as happily as
any man and woman ever have lived. Then one day,
early in 1906, after having lunched and chatted with his
intimate friend, Professor Perrin, Pierre Curie left him
and crossed the Rue Dauphine in Paris " whilst that
thoroughfare was, apparently, crowded with vehicles."
He was knocked over by one of these vehicles and
instantly killed.

This terrible accident well nigh resulted in Madame
Curie's death. For months her state was such that her
friends gave up all hop'e of any recovery. Slowly she
found herself again. Her two children and her sci-
ence had saved her, and to these she consecrated her life.

Langevin, their friend, has this to say of M. and Mme.
Curie's marriage : " Cette epoque marque un change-
ment profond dans son [Pierre Curie's] existence par
son mariage avee Mme. Marie Sklodowska. . . . II est

169

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

difficile, en effet, d'imaginer une union plus intime que
celle, plus etroite chaque jour, ou ils eurent tous deux
la joie de vivre onze ans. Avec la clarte de son esprit
sincere, Curie avait seriti ne pouvoir realiser entiere-
ment sa vie que grace a une femme qui fut en meme
temps sa collaboratrice. Ce serait une belle chose a
laquelle je n'ose croire, ecrivait-il quand il eut trouve
celle qu'il esperait de passer la vie Tun pres de Pautre
hypnotises dans nos reves."

Henri Poincare, as president of the Academie des
Sciences, delivered an address on Pierre Curie's life and
work in which the following reference was made to the
widow: " Dans le deuil ou nous sommes tous plonges,
notre pensee va a cette femme admirable qui ne fut pas
seulement pour lui une compagne devouee, mais une
precieuse collaboratrice."

Madame Curie's work on radium has continued with-
out a break. In 1910 she, in conjunction with her
assistant, Debierne, succeeded in isolating and deter-
mining the properties of the metal itself, and radium
in the chemical sense was shown to have properties
resembling closely those of calcium. In the same year
she published her Traite de Radioactivity which covers
over a thousand pages, and is the most exhaustive and
authoritative work on radium that has thus far been
published. With no little pride could Mme. Curie, say
in the preface ! " La Radioactivite constitue aujourd'hui
une branche importante et independante des sciences
physico-chimiques." And this " important and inde-
pendent branch of physical chemistry " was originated
and developed within the space of fourteen years !

In 1911 Madame Curie was again the recipient of
the Nobel Prize, the prize for literature going to Maeter-
linck. So far Madame Curie is the only individual who
has received the award more than once; this in itself

170

MARIE SKLODOWSKA CURIE

speaks volumes as to her standing in the eyes of her
fellow-scientists. Prof. E. W. Dahlgren, the president
of the Swedish Royal Academy, had this to say in pre-
senting Mme. Curie for the award: "This year the
Academy has decided to award you the prize for chem-
istry for the eminent services you have rendered the
science by your discovery of radium and polonium, and
by your study of the properties of radium and its isola-
tion in the metallic state. . . . Since the inception of
the Nobel Prize twelve years ago it is the first time that
this distinction has been accorded to a laureate who has
already once received the prize. I want you to see,
Madame, by this circumstance a proof of the importance
which our Academy attaches to your discoveries. . . ."
In this same year the French Institute dishonored
itself by refusing to elect Madame Curie to member-
ship. To the honor of the Academy of Sciences, which
is one of the five academies of the French Institute, the
representatives of this body placed Mme. Curie at the
head of their list of final candidates. This gave rise to a
lively discussion on the eligibility of women for member-
ship when Mme. Curie's name was brought before the
one hundred and fifty Academicians at the quarterly
meeting of the five academies. The motion to admit
women was finally rejected by 90 to 52, and this august
body went on record to the effect that whilst they did
not wish to dictate to the separate academies, there was
" an immutable tradition against the election of women,
which it seemed eminently wise to respect." Science
in its search for truth has thrown tradition overboard on
innumerable occasions. But it is one thing to defy the
" immutable tradition " of man's origin, and another
to deny civil rights to his own flesh because of this same
" immutable tradition." Such logic diplomatists might
envy, and some newspapers applaud, but it can hardly
13 171

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

stand the test of that scientific criticism which these
Academicians apply with such telling effect to their
scientific work.

Shortly before the outbreak of the world war the Univer-
sity of Paris undertook the creation of a radium institute
for research in radioactivity. This has since been com-
pleted and Madame Curie has been placed at its head.
The Institute is divided into two departments, the Curie
Laboratory, devoted to research in the physics and
chemistry of the radioactive elements, and the Pasteur
Laboratory, devoted to the application of radioactive sub-
stances to medicine. The street has been appropriately
renamed the "Rue Pierre Curie." Even during the
war this institute was the headquarters for all work in
radiology at the French military hospitals, supplying not
only the necessary materials, but training apprentices
in the methods of application. The French government
placed Mme. Curie in absolute charge of all such work.

Just now Mme. Curie is supervising the construction
of a radium institute in her native city of Warsaw. If
Paris is her father Warsaw is her mother.

Even after her marriage Madame Curie's struggles
were not ended. As late as 1904 the joint income of
the Curies was such as to make the simplest life not
particularly easy. At that time, we are told, the " dis-
mal Boulevard Kellerman " was not the safest of neigh-
borhoods, and the Curies, who lived there, were in a
section of Paris "inhabited by a class of Russian
students of both sexes, who are never favored with
invitations to their embassy." The furniture in the
modest little house was of the simplest, with all ideas of
the aesthetic sacrificed for the useful. Later, when
circumstances improved, the Curies acquired a small
estate at Fontenay-aux-Roses, near Paris, and here

172

MARIE SKLODOWSKA CURIE

Mme. Curie, together with her two children and old Dr.
Curie (her late husband's father) lives.

" In outward appearance," writes Mrs. Cunningham,
" she is tall, just above middle height, broad shouldered
and graceful. Her brow is splendid; her lovely grey
eyes full of sadness. Her mass of fair hair is wavy,
like Paderewski's hair. There is a suggestion of square-
ness in her face, very firm mouth and chin, but there is
gentleness withal. Her voice is musical, and to her
intimate friends she can sometimes be persuaded to
recite poetry, which she does, using the tones of her
voice with charming inflections. ... In manner she is
perfectly simple and unaffected. Like so many Polish
women, she has a magnetic personality and an intense
love of beauty, for beauty in nature and art. Seeing
her one May morning in the classic hall of the Sorbonne,
with her long trailing diaphanous draperies, she sug-
gested strongly to me a similarity to the old Greek
statue of Demetes, the goddess whose face suggests
strength and sadness. I would that Rodin thought so
too and gave expression to that thought."

This description probably reflects a somewhat over-
abundant enthusiasm. At any rate, years of grief and
ill-health have left their impress upon Mme. Curie. A
representative of the Figaro speaks with something
nearer the truth when he describes her as " like some-
thing washed out, the color gone, the fire extinguished.
. . . One is tempted to say her eyes are grey until a
closer inspection brings out a trace of blue ; but in the
end the hue of these frigid orbs relapses into a sheer
neutrality."

Her complexion, we are told, is neither pale, nor
red, nor sallow, but faded ; her hair is neither auburn,
nor brown, nor grey, but neutral. The prominence of
the cheek bones bespeaks Polish origin. " Madame

173

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

Curie looks like a person in need of the sun, a person
who would benefit from more fresh air."

Her voice is low and free from theatricality. Her
manner is decidedly cold ; in fact her coldness " suggests
the passionless spirit of pure science " — a view hardly
supported by the few who are her intimates.

As a lecturer Mme. Curie is unsurpassed in lucidity
of expression, and from the tricks of political oratory she
is quite free. Her voice is hardly ever raised beyond the
regulated academic level, and her arms, which are long,
slender and graceful, are rarely called into play, even
when emphasis is sought. Her accent betrays her
Polish origin, but she expresses every idea in perfectly
idiomatic French.

In 1907, one year after her husband's tragic death,
and after she had succeeded to the chair which her
husband had held at the Sorbonne, Mme. Curie delivered
a discourse on polonium, which is still remembered even
in fashionable Paris circles of to-day. lord Kelvin, Sir
William Ramsay and Sir Oliver Lodge made a special
trip from London to hear this great little woman. Even
the unfortunate King Carlos of Portugal was attracted.
President and Mrs. Fallieres headed a crowd which was
representative of the wealth, fashion and cosmopolitan-
ism of the gay capital of France. " On the stroke of three
an insignificant little black-robed woman1 stepped in, and
the vast and brilliant throng rose with a thrill of homage
and respect. The next moment a roar of applause burst
forth. The timid little figure was visibly distressed, and
raised a trembling hand in mute appeal. Then you could
have heard a pin drop, and she began to speak."

Mme. Curie may be the great scientist, but she has
many of the traits of feminity and motherhood which

1 Mrs. Cunningham, saturated with a reporter's romance, de-
scribes Mme. Curie as "tall, just above middle height."

]

MARIE SKLODOWSKA CURIE

most men of all ages have admired. Aside from her
work, her attention is devoted almost exclusively to the
welfare of her two daughters, Irene and Eve, seventeen
and thirteen years old respectively. Irene cares little
for science, but much for music and the arts, but little
Eve is all for laboratory work. Already to-day she
assists her mother in much the same way that Madame
Curie, years ago, assisted her father in Warsaw.

When the two children were younger Mme. Curie
made all their dresses, and washed and ironed the more
delicate pieces of lingerie. In so far as she herself is
concerned, Mme. Curie gives little thought to her own
appearance. She is excessively neat, as becomes the
nature of her work, but her dress is of the simplest,
which changes not when fashion changes. The first
and only time that " Madame " indulged in a decottetee
silk dress was when she was invited to dinner by Presi-
dent and Mrs. Loubet. Gossip has it that this " fancy "
dress has serve ' ; as useful a purpose as the young lady's
customary wedding gown.

Mme. Curie's sister, Dr. Dluska,2 has charge of a
sanitarium at Zakopane, a famous retreat in the Car-
pathians, and there, in days gone by, Sienkiewicz,
Paderewski and Mme. Curie spent their summers,
dreaming of the rebirth of a nation. Jescza Polska nie
zginela (Poland is not yet lost) runs the first line of
Poland's national song. Mme. Curie continues to spend
her summers at Zakopana ; one of the other two is dead ;
and the third has just retired from the presidency of

* Mme. Curie also has a brother, Dr. Sklodowski, who practices
medicine in Warsaw. Lest the reader be somewhat confused, we
hasten to add that " ski " is the masculine, and " ska " the fem-
inine ending in Polish; hence Mile. Marie Sklodowska. The
rumors that the Sklodowski family is of Jewish origin are not true.

175

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

the old-new country whose chief glory is that it has
given birth to Marie Sklodowska Curie.

References

Part of the material for this biography has been
obtained from private sources. Miss Cunningham's
account (i) has good personal touches but is quite
worthless scientifically. The same may be said of the
articles by Emily Crawford (2) and W. G. Fitzgerald (3).
Some sidelights on Madame Curie are given by Paul
Langevin (4) in his account of Pierre Curie. For a lay-
man desirous of an intelligent description of radium and
its significance, Soddy's Matter and Energy (5) stands
alone in the English language. A more technical ac-
count may be found in Rutherford's article prepared for
the nth edition of the Britanica (6). The beginner in
inorganic chemistry can hardly do better than consult
Smith's Introduction (7). The more comprehensive
works of Soddy (8), Rutherford (9), and Curie (10) are
the standard reference books.

1. Marian Cunningham: Madame Curie (Sklodowska) and the

Story of Radium (Saint Catherine Press, London).

2. Emily Crawford: The Curies at Home. The World To-day, 6,

490 (1904).

3. W. G. Fitzgerald: Madame Curie and her Work. Harper's

Bazaar, 42, 233 (1908).

4. Paul Langevin: Piere Curie. La Revue du Mois, 2t 5 (1906).

5. F. Soddy: Matter and Energy (Henry Holt and Co.).

6. Ernest Rutherford: Radioactivity [Encycl. Britannica, 22, 794

(1911)].

7. Alexander Smith: Introduction to Inorganic Chemistry (Century

Co. 1917).

8. F. Soddy: The Chemistry of the Radio-Elements (Longmans,

Green, and Co. 1915).

9. Ernest Rutherford: Radioactive Substances and their Radia-

tions (Cambridge University Press. 1913).

10. Marie Curie: TraitS de RadioactivitS (Gauthier-Villars, Im-
primeur-Libraire, Paris. 1910).
176

VICTOR MEYER

CTOR MEYER belongs to the school of
pure organic chemists — to the period when
organic chemistry was in its ascendency.
He easily takes his place among the fore-
most pioneers in this phase of the science. He began
work when the superstructure of organic chemistry had
yet to be built up, and in this building process few can
claim the share he can. When the beauty and sym-
metry of the building was all but apparent Meyer passed
away. The man of forty-nine (he had reached that age
when he took his own life), with the rare mind that was
his, could still have accomplished much.

Meyer was born in Berlin on September 8, 1848. His
father, a prosperous Jewish merchant and a man of high
intelligence, surrounded himself with the elite of the
intellectual element of the city. The chemist Sonnen-
schein, then a privat-docent at the University; Bern-
stein, the founder and editor of the Volkszeitung;
Franz Duncker, Love-Kalbe, Major Beitzke (author of
the "Thirty Years' War")» Schulze-Delitzsch and
Berthold Auerbach were frequent visitors to the house.
It was in such an atmosphere that Victor Meyer was
brought up.

Together with his brother, Victor received his earliest
instruction from his mother. Later a private tutor pre-
pared the children for the gymnasium, and this Victor
entered when he was ten years old.

During these early years at the gymnasium, Meyer's
leanings were rather towards literature than science.
The drama especially had a strong attraction for him.

177

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

Indeed, at fifteen, the boy had quite made up his mind
to become an actor. To his father's remonstrances, who
watched these developments with much perturbation,
Victor replied: " Never can I become anything else —
never ! I feel it. In any other profession I shall remain
a good-for-nothing the rest of my life."

However, in the meantime the lad continued his
academic studies, and in the spring of 1865 he passed
his matriculation examination (Abiturientenexameri).
Hoping against hope that possibly the university at-
mosphere would tend to direct Victor's thoughts in
another direction, the family persuaded the youth to
proceed to Heidelberg, there to attend some lectures in
the company of his elder brother. What the incessant
arguments of the parents and friends had failed to do,
the chemical lectures of one of the professors easily
accomplished. In Bunsen the young man encountered
one of those rare minds who can see and demonstrate
the beauty and poetry of anything they happen to be
engaged in. From the lips of Bunsen chemistry issued
forth as a song to nature, and as a song to nature Meyer
caught the refrain.

Small, and quite childish in appearance, the seventeen-
year-old boy enrolled as a student of the university.
During the first semester he attended Hofmann's lec-
tures in Berlin, so as to be near his parents. After that
he took up his abode in Heidelberg. Here he followed
Kirchhoff's lectures on physics, Kopp's on theoretical
chemistry, Helmholtz's on physiology, Erlenmeyer's
on organic chemistry, and Bunsen's on general chem-
istry— truly as illustrious a band of scholars as could be
found anywhere.

Under the same roof there lived Julius Bernstein (the
son of the family's old friend), who was at that time one
of Helmholtz's assistants, and who, as professor of

VICTOR MEYER

physiology at Halle, has since risen to be one of Ger-
many's great physiologists. Bernstein and the Meyers
fraternized much together. To this trio there was
later added a fourth — Paul du Bois Reymond, then
privat-docent in mathematics.

Meyer's work at the university was brilliant in the
extreme : he headed the lists in every course. In May,
1867, when but nineteen years old, he received the
doctor's degree summa cum laude — which is given on
but rare occasions. Bunsen immediately appointed him
to an assistantship, and here he chiefly busied himself
with analyses of various spring waters by methods initi-
ated or improved by Bunsen and his pupils.

In addition to his work at the laboratory, Meyer was
much in demand as a coach for the doctor's examination.
Yet he found tune to cultivate his artistic tastes in many
ways. From his earliest days he played the violin;
now he began to take lessons in piano playing. The
classics he assiduously cultivated, and never missed an
opportunity of attending the more notable performances
at Mannheim. His week ends were usually spent
wandering near Heidelberg. Julius Bernstein, who
often accompanied him on these excursions, tells of a
pretty little incident that occurred to them on one occa-
sion: /" Towards evening, tired and weary after a day's
tramping, we entered a wine cellar, and there sat down
at one of the tables. A young peasant who happened to
come in came up to us and asked permission to sit at
our table. As we were chatting with him he fixed his
eyes on Victor, stared at him for some time, and then
exclaimed, ' See here, never in my lif e have I seen such
a handsome fellow as you are.' Just quite in this way
Victor was hardly ever addressed again, but it is a
fact that the ladies were all more or less in love with

him."

179

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

In the late sixties Baeyer had already established a
reputation such as to attract students from all parts of
the world, and it was to Baeyer's laboratory in Berlin
(at the Gewerbeakademie) that Meyer proceeded in
1868. And what a busy and profitable place this proved
to be! Baeyer himself had already begun his classic
researches on indigo blue. Graebe and Liebermann had
just produced alizarin artificially — the first instance of
the synthesis of a plant-coloring matter. S. Marasse,
B. Jaffe, E. Ludwig and W. A. van Dorp were all helping
to make the laboratory famous.

I The young Meyer made more than a favorable im-
pression, according to Liebermann's testimony: " Mey-
er's remarkable ability could hardly pass unnoticed.
His congenial personality added but to the esteem in
which he was held. He seemed to have read every-
thing, and his memory was simply phenomenal. . . .
Many obscure references that at that time were rather
difficult to locate could easily be traced by consulting
Meyer. He could usually tell you not merely the volume
but the very page."

During the three years that Meyer remained here
he published several important papers, among which
may be mentioned his contributions to the constitu-
tion of camphor, of chloral hydrate and of the benzene
ring.

Towards the end of 1870, at Baeyer's recommenda-
tion, Meyer was appointed professor extraordinary at
the Stuttgart Polytechnik, of the chemical laboratory of
which H. v. Fehling was the director. Here the twenty-
three-year-old professor, who had never been privat-
docent, was put in charge of the organic chemistry
department.

Stuttgart proved an incentive to renewed activity.
Here he announced his discovery of the nitro compounds

180

VICTOR MEYER

of the aliphatic series— his first really lasting contri-
bution to the advancement of the science.

Though little burdened with routine at Stuttgart,
Meyer was sorely tempted to accept a first assistantship
at the University of Strassburg, offered him by Baeyer,
who was about to take charge of the chemical institute
there. On the one hand, there was the opportunity of
once again coming in contact with the great master
mind; on the other hand, he was to be put in charge of
the analytical department, and this meant running
around the laboratory and attending to the wants of the
students the greater part of the day. In Stuttgart he
therefore remained— till one day President Kappeler,
of the Zurich Polytechnik, chanced to walk into his
lecture-room. Kappeler was so impressed with the
young man's ability that he immediately offered Meyer
the vacant professorship of chemistry at Zurich. And
so at twenty-four Victor became a full-fledged professor
ordinarius!

This appointment Meyer celebrated in a highly appro-
priate way: he became engaged to the companion of
his youth, Fraulein Hedwig Davidson.

The Zurich laboratory was divided into two parts, the
analytical and the technical, and of the former Meyer
had charge. His predecessor was Wislecenus, who had
accepted a call to Leipzig. Bolley had control of the
technicological side. With Bolley, as well as with
Eduard Schar, the professor of pharmacy, and Ernst
Schulze, the professor of agricultural chemistry, the
newly-appointed instructor fraternized much. The re-
searches that had been started at Stuttgart were now
renewed with the utmost vigor. In the beginning all did
not go well. A mercury compound of nitromethane
which Rilliet, his private assistant, had prepared, ex-
ploded, with serious injury to Rilliet. Wurster was

181

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

brought from Stuttgart to replace him, and Meyer
found him a competent substitute. " I have given him
rooms in the laboratory," he writes; "this is of the
utmost importance, as thereby he can do twice as much
work. He is very conscientious — so much so, that I
think I shall send for another one of my Stuttgart
pupils."

Satisfied as he was with the assistants he imported,
Meyer was far from satisfied with the assistants he found,
or with the cool reception accorded him by the students.
In Stuttgart he was the idol of his pupils; here the men
had little sympathy with one so much taken up with the
theoretical aspect of the subject. || " One single publi-
cation on some cheese preparation makes one far more
celebrated in Switzerland than one thousand discoveries
in the field of pure organic chemistry," he writes bitterly.
But the day was to come when the Swiss were to vener-
ate him, and the day was also to come when Meyer would
love his Zurich students and the Zurich atmosphere.

From the very first he had his hands full. "I am
very busy," he writes, " as you can conclude from the
following: I devote eight hours to lectures in organic
chemistry, two to lectures on analytical chemistry, two
to metallurgy (in place of Kopp, who is in Vienna), and
besides this I have to superintend Kopp's as well as my
own laboratory." But this did not prevent him from
pursuing his research work. In the month of July he
records the synthesis of jiphejiyl-me thane from benzoyl
alcohol and benzene. This compound, wEich melts at
26° C., Meyer placed on his writing table, and used it
in place of a thermometer. At ten in the morning, if
the substance was in a molten state, the Herr Professor
would announce that weather conditions made it im-
practicable to pursue any work in the laboratory; and
then professor and students would go bathing. On one

182

V. Meyer's apparatus for determining the vapor density, a factor of extreme

importance in deducing the constitution of compounds, [Reproduced

from the Berichte der deutschen chsmischen Gesettschaft.]

VICTOR MEYER

of these occasions Meyer rescued one of his assistants,
Michler, from drowning.

But recreation played but a small part in the Zurich
life. Apart from the regular students there were (in
1876) twelve men working for their doctorate, in addi-
tion to Meyer's four assistants, who had already passed
that stage, but who were busier than any of the candi-
dates creating new compounds. The nitro compounds of
the aliphatic series, the first piece of classical research
with which the name of Meyer is associated, were en-
gaging the attention of the youthful professor; but even
at that time he made excursions into the realm of indigo
chemistry (the artificial production of which he hoped to
solve in one week!) and discussed van't HofFs views
on optical activity and the asymmetry of the carbon atom.

With Baeyer, the great master, and with Graebe and
Liebermann, Meyer carried on a brisk correspondence,
the letters dealing chiefly with views on current scientific
topics. In 1876 his elder brother obtained a position
near Zurich and Victor's delight knew no bounds.
Gustav Cohn, the economist, and Eduard Hitzig, the
psychiatrist, were about this time appointed professors
at the University. Graebe himself, who had been in
delicate health, resigned from his Konigsberg position
and came to Zurich to join the happy crowd. But for a
rather unpleasant polemic with Ladenburg (Meyer later
dubbed this episode the Ladenburg-Fieber) which
tended to undermine Meyer's delicate constitution,
there was nothing at this time to mar the even tenor
of the young man's life. He had just begun his second
classical work : his method of determining vapor density.
We find him writing to Baeyer asking for some methyl
anthracene, a substance which by analysis can hardly
be differentiated from ordinary anthracene, but which
can easily be identified by the vapor density method.

183

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

In the spring of 1876 Meyer received a call from the
Konigsberg authorities, but by this time he had come to
like Zurich and was loath to leave it. As an inducement
to remain, and in appreciation of his services, Kappeler
had Meyer's salary increased by 1500 francs a year.
Not so very long after this a vacancy occurred in Er-
langen. The rumor had gone forth that Meyer would be
offered the position, and this came to the ears of the
president. Without waiting to hear from Meyer, Kap-
peler took the initiative by informing him that the wish
of the governing body to have him remain in Zurich was
so earnest that they were willing to make his position
tenable for life, provided he would decide to stay (Meyer
held it on a ten-year contract), and that they would
further increase his salary by 1000 francs. " As I had
no desire to go to Erlangen," Meyer writes to Baeyer,
" I gave him the assurance with pleasure."

The miscarriage of one of his experiments before the
student class made him hit upon what is conceded to be
his most brilliant discovery — thiophene. "The analy-
ses," he writes to Baeyer, " have shown the compound
to have the formula C4H4S. It boils at 84° C. How
should it be named? Kindly help me. I do not like
such a name as thiofurfuran. . . . How about indogen?
... or indophenin? or thiochrom, krytan, kryptophan?
I would like to get hold of a name that would please
you, too. Possibly the Frau Professor would like to
take part in this." Thiophene was the name finally
selected, and this became the mother substance of a
group of compounds almost as extensive as benzene it
self, which the genius of Meyer introduced into organic
chemistry.

In January, 1884, in the company of Professor Blunt-
schli, the architect, Meyer undertook a journey through
Austria-Hungary, with the view to examining the various

184

VICTOR MEYER

chemical laboratories there. Their journey lay over
Munich, and here the first stop was made. " We have
already been in Munich and Graetz," he writes " and
in both places we had a most delightful tune. In
Munich I spent a lovely time with Baeyer, Otto Fischer
and Konig, and one delightful musical afternoon with
the Heyses." (Here he refers to Heyse, the poet and
novelist.) Again: " The new buildings in Vienna defy
description. The Parliament, the Guildhall, the Uni-
versity and the Hofburg Theatre constitute a section
beside which the Place de la Concorde in Paris fades
into insignificance. In addition, they have the recently-
constructed museums by Semper, which are the finest
examples of Renaissance architecture. I witnessed a
performance of the Walkure and the second part of
Faust. I also saw my old flame, the actress Lucca.
You can imagine how happy I was to see her again after
thirteen years of absence. She is as beautiful as ever,
time not seeming to have altered her."

In July, 1884, Hubner, the Gottingen professor, died.
Meyer's friend Klein, who informed him of this, also
told him that he was a likely candidate. The thought of
having to leave Zurich was quite unbearable. What had
he not accomplished during these thirteen never-to-be
forgotten years! But, then, to step into the world-
famed Gottingen school — that had also to be considered.

Meyer had not yet reached his thirty-sixth year. He
had to regard the call to Wohler's old establishment as
the highest compliment that could be paid to him.
Indeed, the compliment proved a higher one than even
he expected, for none others were even to be considered.

During the last days of the year 1889 Meyer proceeded

to Bonn to undergo an energetic cure : a sort of massage

and electrical treatment combined. He writes: "For

fourteen days I lived in the strictest incognito, going

14 185

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

under the name of Professor Meyer, of Berlin. Since
a week ago I have given this up and am now with Wallach
and Kekule daily. To see Kekule once again and to
speak to him does one's heart good. You will not con-
sider me vain when I tell you that it was delightful to
hear him say to me that he considered me the foremost
among the chemists of the younger generation. Wallach
is a splendid type of fellow. He visits me daily. He
has no easy life of it. What a pity that he cannot go to
Zurich! I suppose you have heard that Hantzsch has
been nominated to succeed me. I am glad to see that
both Kekule and Wallach approve Kappeler's choice.
Wallach has completed a wonderful piece of work on the
terpenes which must surely become epoch-making."

Meyer left Bonn in indifferent health and after a
short stay hi Zurich proceeded to the Riviera with his
parents. Here he felt himself slightly better, but not
very much so. |" Italy and the Riviera are very nice,
but only for the one who is in a position to enjoy her
beauties," he writes. " In my case, where I dare not
go beyond one-half hour's distance from the house, the
mountains call in vain."

In this condition Meyer proceeded to Gottingen. He
was comforted to a large extent in that his excellent
assistant, Sandmeyer, accompanied him for the summer
semester. Sandmeyer, one of Meyer's " discoveries,"
is to-day known wherever chemistry flourishes. He
started as a mechanic in Meyer's laboratory, but soon
gave this up to devote all his time to chemistry.

Meyer left Zurich without being able to take leave of
his students, but some months later he returned to
attend the seventieth birthday of Kappeler. At the
Kommers, which was given in the old man's honor,
Meyer was among the speakers. / Professor Gold-
schmidt thus describes the scene : '£>! see him (Meyer)

186

VICTOR MEYER

even now before me as he spoke to the students at the
Kommers in the evening. The 'Zuricher Polytech-
nikers ' have, as a rule, but little opportunity of knowing
the professors outside their special faculty, and have
therefore but little interest in those who are not their
own teachers. As Victor Meyer's slender form ap-
peared on the platform, and as his bright blue eyes
glanced around the assembly, there broke forth a shout
of welcome from all — engineers, machinists, architects,
as well as from his own students, the chemists — to be
ended in a whirlwind of applause at the close of a speech,
sparkling and witty as ever."

Meyer's reception in Gottingen was all that could be
desired. His inaugural lecture created a furore (" es
war zum Brechen voll," he writes), and he was well
pleased with so auspicious a beginning. Besides, the
other men on the staff were such as any head of a depart-
ment could well be proud of. C. Polstorff, K. Buchka,
R. Leuckardt, P. Jannasch, and L. Gattermann were
among the regular forces. Then there was the old
attendant Mahlmann, whom the students of Wohler
still remembered as a marvel in glass blowing. And,
finally, Sandmeyer, Stadler, and several other Zurich
men completed the list.

The scientific work inaugurated here was in the main
a continuation of what had previously been started else-
where. That wonderful thiophene, which seemed to
be the starting point for as many derivatives as benzene
itself, was still a keen subject for study in his labor-
atory. The material along these lines accumulated to
such an extent that Meyer found himself warranted in
publishing a book on these sulphur compounds. Vapor
density determinations — a subject which had agitated
) him even early in his Zurich career— were being fol-
lowed up with unslackened zeal.

187

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

But Meyer was never so engrossed with his own work
as not to keep abreast of the work which others in the
field were doing. Thus we find him engaging in a
friendly polemic with Baeyer on the latter 's views as to
the constitution of benzene. Stereoisomerism — a term
corned by Meyer — dealing with configuration in space, a
subject then in its infancy, also engaged his attention;
and he early applied van't Hoff's views to explain several
perplexities, such as the configuration of hydroxylamine
and isomeric oximes of unsymmetrical ketones. Here
we see the Professor no less proficient in the field of
speculation than in that of experimentation.

Feeling the need of a comprehensive treatise on
organic chemistry, which neither the German nor any
other language supplied, Meyer, in collaboration with
his assistant Jacobson, started his famous text-book.
To this day it has not a peer. Those who have had
occasion to do any extensive work in this branch of the
science know well enough how indispensable a part of
their equipment this book is. Unfortunately the senior
author did not live long enough to see the work in its
completed form (it ultimately appeared— still incom-
plete— in two bulky volumes).

Much as the nature and extent of the research work
adds to the renown of an institution, certain other factors
tend to have no small influence. When Meyer came to
Gottingen the size and equipment of the laboratories
were far from what could be desired, and one of his
stipulations was that this state of affairs would soon be
altered. With a willingness which could result only
from the esteem in which Meyer was held, the author-
ities appropriated a sum sufficient to build a new labor-
atory, and gave him complete charge of supervising its
construction. Of course, this took up much time, but as
the laboratory was to prove the tools of the carpenter,

188

VICTOR MEYER

and realizing how much the finished product is de-
pendent upon the quality of the tools employed, Meyer
threw himself into it with a wholeheartedness which was
characteristic of everything he undertook.

Another step in the direction of increasing efficiency
was the formation of the Gb'ttingen Chemical Society.
The number of research men had risen to such a height —
at this time there were 105 — that Meyer readily fore-
saw the advantage of organizing a club where these men
could congregate and discuss current topics. At these
meetings the students would give accounts of the
progress of their latest investigations, and professors
and students would engage in friendly criticism. The
esprit de corps thus created was little short of wonderful.
The one source of great worry to Meyer as well as to
his dear friends was the state of his health, which at
best was but indifferent. Here in Gottingen he had
formed a very intimate friendship with Ebstein, a well-

I known professor in the medical faculty, and, fortunately

! for him, Ebstein was untiring in his efforts. In 1888,
when Meyer suffered a bad attack of diphtheria, only
his friend's constant attention saved him. Ebstein pre-

i scribed no end of rest cures. These were well enough
in themselves, but, as they so often clashed with work
in the laboratory, Meyer fretted not a little. However,
feeling that it was a question of life and death, he usually

: yielded.

It was on one of these recuperation tours that Meyer
revisited his old Zurich. His reception by faculty and
students left no doubt as to the way they regarded their
old professor. But he had already had a proof of this
shortly after he came to Gottingen. Then his Zurich
scholars sent him an address which he described as

j"so etwas schones habe ich noch nicht gelesen und
auch noch nicht gesehen ! "

189

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

The summer vacations were usually spent in Heligo-
land by the sea. Here, in company with his friends,
Liebermann, Tollens, Ebstein, and occasionally Kirch-
hoff, the weeks were passed in recuperation and inter-
change of views.

In the fall of 1888 his quiet life gave place to days of
great agitation.

On November u he writes to his brother: " Con-
fidential! Yesterday I received an official communi-
cation from the ministry offering me the professorship
hi Heidelberg in succession to Bunsen. They are
ready to do anything I want them to do. But not a soul
must know of this till next Thursday. On that day the
new chemical building will be officially opened, and were
this news to leak out then, it would cause a great scandal.
What shall I do, unlucky man that I am! The greatest
piece of good fortune hi the world, and yet here I am —
a most dissatisfied beggar." To Baeyer he writes:
" I must write to you in the very first place. I am not
far wrong when I surmise that you have had a great
deal to do with the honor that has come to me. My
debt of gratitude to you is forever on the increase. The
Minister of Education writes that the Faculty and Senate
have nominated me unico /oco, and that Bunsen was
particularly desirous of seeing me succeed him."

In Berlin, where negotiations were begun, Althoff,
the minister, was as bent upon retaining Meyer — at least
in Prussia — as the Heidelberg authorities were bent upon
getting him. He held out the assurance that Meyer
would be the logical successor to Hofmann hi Berlin,
as Helmholtz and the majority of the faculty there had
declared themselves in his favor. " I brushed all this
aside," writes Meyer, " and told Althoff that I hoped
Hofmann would write a nice obituary notice of me in
the Berichte." Not even the title of Geheimrat, which

190

VICTOR MEYER

was bestowed upon him at this time, could influence him.
" On the envelope you address me as Geheimrat,"
he writes to his brother. "That, of course doesn't
matter, and yet it troubles me. I have strictly forbidden
any of my assistants to apply that title to me. ' Pro-
fessor' is far more to my liking, and that they shall
call me, as they have hitherto done."

Urged by Bunsen, Meyer finally decided for Heidel-
berg. " I am the happiest and yet the most wretched
of men," he writes.

Before proceeding to assume his duties in Heidelberg
he spent several delightful days in Bordighera. Here
were Baeyer, Emil Fischer, Wallach and Quincke, " the
masters of- them that know " in chemistry.

To Heidelberg Meyer took as his assistants Jannasch,
Gattermann, Jacobson, Auwers and Demuth. At this
day when one reads these names one cannot but help
admiring Meyer's wonderful judgment of men. Every
one of these five has since made an enviable name for
himself.

"I saw him in Heidelberg in the spring of 1891,"
writes Thorpe, " when he was busy with the enlarge-
ment of the old laboratory, and it was with a glance of
pride — a pardonable pride — that he pointed out the
places where he and I had worked with * Papa ' Bun-
sen. ... It was strange, too, to hear the sound of
children's voices and their laughter, and the bustle of
servants in what was formerly the silent, half-deserted
rooms overlooking the Wredeplatz; and stranger still
to me was it, as we together called upon Bunsen, sitting
solitarily in his rooms overlooking the Bunsenstrasse,
to behold the meeting and to listen to the greeting of
these two men — the memory of whose names and
fame Heidelberg will cherish so long as Heidelberg
exists."

191

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

At forty-one Meyer found himself head of — what then
was — the most famous chemical school in the world.
For many years Bunsen had been looked upon as the
Nestor -of the science. The most promising students
all flocked to Heidelberg to sit at the feet of the great
master. Almost every university chair of chemistry of
any pretensions was filled by one of Bunsen's pupils.
Yet of all of them Bunsen looked upon Meyer as the most
brilliant, and it was because of that that he was so eager
to have Meyer succeed him.

As in Gb'ttingen so in Heidelberg, Meyer continued
researches long before begun. These were, however,
supplemented by one important addition: a study of
conditions determining both the gradual and explosive
combustion of gaseous mixtures, and this new phase of
his labors may be regarded as the outstanding feature of
his Heidelberg tenure of office.

All would have been well but for his physical suffer-
ings. These re-commenced soon after he came to
Heidelberg, and they scarcely left him till the day of his
death. Early in the morning of August 8, 1897, ^e took
his own life by swallowing some prussic acid. On the
table he left this message: " Geliebte Frau! Geliebte
Kinder! Lebt wohl! Meine Nerven sind zerstort, ich
kann nicht mehr." At the early age of forty-nine, when
in the full bloom of his powers, this remarkably gifted
man passed away.

From the reports which have come to us it would
seem that Meyer's qualities as a teacher were rivalled
only by his powers as an investigator. Mention has
already been made of his histrionic talents; these were
put to effective use hi later days as professor. His
extraordinary command of language, spoken in a well-

192

VICTOR MEYER

modulated voice, and coupled with a well-nigh unrivalled
knowledge of his subject, went far to assure success.
In addition, Meyer's laboratory technique, one of his
precious assets, stood him in excellent stead when
experimentally illustrating his lectures — and his lectures
were always copiously illustrated by experiments, in the
preparation of which no pains were spared.1

Nor as a man did he fall short. Sympathetic by nature,
generous almost to a fault, always eager to acknowledge
the labor of others, with not a taint of jealousy in his
make-up, full of a hearty optimism which made him a
congenial companion, a splendid raconteur, an excellent
after-dinner speaker, a violin-player of no mean calibre —
these qualities endeared him to all. His friends,
Bunsen, Kopp, Erlenmeyer, Baeyer, Graebe, Kekule,
Liebermann, Fischer, etc., respected him not only as an
eminent colleague, but loved him as a man of worth.2
His house was a centre not merely for scientific, but
literary and artistic notables. At these gatherings his

1 " I well recollect that the word most frequently used in Zurich
in defining the opinions of Victor Meyer's students of his lectures
was 'brilliant I* (Watson Smith). "What particularly struck
me about his lectures was their finished style. He made fairly
constant use of notes, speaking with great rapidity. Yet his treat-
ment of the subject was very clear, and his language perfect. The
experiments were always well prepared and exceptionally success-
ful. Indeed, his lectures were most popular. ..." (John I.
Watts.)

2 " Ich muss Euch doch sagen, wie entziickt ich wider von allem
bin: Berlin, Halle, Miinchen. In Miinchen war es ganz herrlich
mit Baeyers, Fischers, und dem anderen. Baeyer ergriff eimnal
bei Tische das Glas um mit Emil Fishcer und mir Schmollis zu
machen, denkt nur, der liebe Mann! Es brachte uns momentan
in fSrmliche Verlegenheit, denn naturlich brauchten wir mehrere
Tage, bis wir uns daran gewb'hnen konnten, ihn ungeniert Du zu
nennen." (Victor Meyer, in a letter to his brother, October 17,
1883.)

193

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

charming wife and four daughters did much to con-
tribute towards a delightful evening.8

Meyer was not one of those professors who shrink
from popularizing their science. He frequently wrote for
the Naturforcher, Naturwissenschaftliche Rundschau,
Deutsche Revue, Deutsche Worte. Even in Harden's
Zukunft we find an article on Pasteur in which the
attempt is made to explain the asymmetry of the carbon
atom to a lay public. Nor were his activities strictly con-
fined to scientific subjects. In pure belles-lettres he
published Wanderblattern und Skizzen Aus Natur und
Wissenschaft and Martztage im Kanarischen Archipel.

At the time of his death Meyer was president of the
German chemical society, Emil Fischer being the vice-
president. In 1888, when the new building at Gottingen
was finished, the title of Geheimrath was bestowed on
him. He was also a member of the Akademien der
Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Munchen; die Gesellschaft
der Wissenschaften zu Upsala, and Gottinger Gelehrte
Gesellschaft. From the Royal Society of London he
received the Davy Medal, and the University of Kb'nigs-
berg granted him the degree M.D. (Hon.X

3 " Die jugendliche Gestallt, der fein geschmttene, geistreiche
Kopf, das seelenvolle blaue Auge, der Wohlklang der Stimme nah-
men schon ausserlich Jeden fur ihn ein." (Liebermann.)

" Young, handsome, well dressed — for a German professor — with
a quick wit and a genial manner, he was a welcome addition to any
gathering.'; (John I. Watts.)

" No one was more popular at these gatherings (the Chemical
Society at Heidelberg) than Meyer. His nimbje mind and retentive
memory, his gift of ready speech, his sense of humor, and genial
manner combined to make it pleasant to listen to him, no matter
whether he was, in accordance with the rules of the society, called
upon to give an account of some work which had just been published,
or whether he was discussing and criticising a communication from a
fellow-member." (Thorpe.)

194

VICTOR MEYER

References

For much of my material I am indebted to Richard
Meyer's life of his brother (i). Carl Liebermann's
memorial lecture (2) delivered to the members of the
German chemical society is a beautiful homage to a
departed friend. Prof. £. Thorpe in his Essays on
Historical Chemistry (3) has an interesting article on
Victor Meyer. A detailed accound of Meyer's work
will be found in Dr. Harrow's article (4).

z. Richard Meyer: Victor Meyer. Berichte der deutchen chem-
ischen Gesellschaft (Berlin), 41, 4505 (1908).

a. Carl Liebermann: Victor Meyer. Berichte der deutchen chem-
ischen Gesellschaft (Berlin), 30, 2157 (1897).

3. E. Thorpe: Essays on Historical Chemistry (Macmillan and Co.

19").

4. Benjamin Harrow: Victor Meyer — His Life and Work. Journal

of the Franklin Institute , Sept. (1916), p. 377.

195

IRA REMSEN

MISTRY in America is a very young
product. It probably received its impetus
from the Englishman, Priestly, the discoverer
of oxygen, who came to these shores towards
the close of the eighteenth century, and from Robert
Hare, the inventor of the oxy-hydrogen blowpipe.
Indirectly, the illustrious Benjamin Franklin also had a
share in laying foundations.

The flame was kept a-burning by a number of well-
known teachers at various university centers in the
country, such as Wolcott Gibbs (1822-1908) and J. S.
Cooke (1827-94) of Harvard, S. W. Johnson (1830-
1909) of Yale, and J. W. Mallet (1832-1912), of Virginia.
The more modern period was ushered in by Charles
Eliot in Boston, Frederick Chandler, at Columbia E. F.
Smith at Pennsylvania, and Ira Remsen at Johns
Hopkins.

From small beginnings, the science has enlarged a
thousand fold. The American Chemical Society has a
membership of 13,000. It publishes an erudite journal,
devoted to recording the results of research by its
members; a chemical abstracts, embracing a digest of
the world's chemical literature; and a journal of in-
dustrial chemistry which, in the last four or five years,
has become one of the best in the world.

Remsen was the first professor of chemistry at the
first institution ever established in America for post-
graduate work — Johns Hopkins. He was the founder
of the American Chemical Journal, the first of its kind in
America. As teacher, as research worker and as

197

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

writer, he is probably more directly responsible for the
remarkable development of the science in the United
States than any other man living.

Remsen was born in New York City on February 10,
1846. His father, James Vanderbilt Remsen, was
descended from one of the earliest Dutch settlers of
Long Island. His mother, Rosanna Secor Remsen,
could also trace her descent from early Dutch settlers
and French Hugenots. Her grandfather was the Rev.
James D. Demarest of the Dutch Reformed Church,
who had married Eliza Haring, daughter of John Haring,
a man of some distinction in Revolutionary times.

In the house of the Rev. Demarest, where Remsen
spent part of his childhood, both Dutch and English
were spoken; the clergyman, in fact, preached in both
these languages. The atmosphere was a deeply re-
ligious one. There were morning and evening prayers
and reading of the scriptures, and rather long grace
before and after each meal. Before he was twelve
Remsen had read the Bible several tunes, and fervently
believed every line written in the holy book.

To improve his wife's health, Remsen senior bought
a farm in Rockland County, New York, and Ira was
brought here when some eight years old. The next two
years were spent in the country, giving the boy an oppor-
tunity to come into close contact with nature — a most
valuable education for any boy. Trees and birds and
fruits and flowers and animals and various aspects of
farming, all came under his survey.

After his mother's death young Remsen and the rest
of the family returned to New York. The smattering
of knowledge which the boy had received in rural
schools was now augmented by first sending him to the
public school, and later, when fourteen old, to the Free
Academy, now the College of the City of New York.

198

IRA REMSEN

With the exception of history, Remsen excelled in all
subjects at the College, particularly in mathematics.
The highly suggestive way of teaching history was to
cram dates down your throat: if they refused to stick,
you were a poor student of history. Remsen had no
memory for dates, and so he was adjudged a poor
student of history.

Latin and Greek were also pumped into his poor little
system, to which, strangely enough, Remsen took very
kindly. Of science there was precious little. Dr.
Ogden Doremus embraced the whole of science, —
anatomy, physiology, geology, astronomy, etc., — in 3
course of lectures given once a week during the year.
Prof. Wolcott Gibbs, later at Harvard, did give a few
lectures on chemistry, but these made no impression
upon Remsen. What helped considerably were Dore-
mus's popular lectures on physics and chemistry,
given in the large lecture hall of the Cooper Institute.
Doremus never spared experiments, and thereby he
aroused interest in many of his hearers, among them
Remsen.

Remsen never graduated from the Free Academy.
His father had decided that the lad should study medi-
cine, and in the opinion of this good man, as well as in
that of the family physician, the earlier Ira was started
upon his medical career, the better. That the boy had
shown no aptitude along this line mattered little. In
those days parents did not consult children, and children
were obedient.

Remsen was apprenticed to a medical man who taught
chemistry in the homeopathic medical college. That
worthy man gave the boy a text-book of chemistry, and
said, "Read I" So read he did. But it was Greek
to him — worse than Greek, for he knew something of
that language. Years later, in one among his many

199

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

addresses which never failed to interest, Remsen re-
called this period:

"While reading a text-book of chemistry I came
upon the statement, * nitric acid acts upon copper.'
I was getting tired of reading such absurd stuff and I
determined to see what this meant. Copper was more
or less familiar tome, for copper cents were then hi use.
I had seen a bottle marked * nitric acid ' on a table hi
the doctor's office where I was then 'doing tune!'
I did not know its peculiarities, but I was getting on and
likely to learn. The spirit of adventure was upon
me.

" Having nitric acid and copper, I had only to learn
what the words 'acts upon' meant. Then the state-
ment, 'nitric acid acts upon copper' would be some-
thing more than mere words. All was still. In the
interest of knowledge I was even willing to sacrifice one
of the few copper cents then in my possession.

" I put one of them on the table; opened the bottle
marked 'nitric acid'; poured some of the liquid on
the copper; and prepared to take an observation. But
what was this wonderful thing I beheld? The cent was
already changed, and it was no small change either. A
greenish blue liquid foamed and fumed over the cent
and over the table. The air hi the neighborhood of the
performance became colored dark red. A great colored
cloud arose. This was disagreeable and suffocating.
How should I stop this?

" I tried to get rid of the objectionable mess by picking
it up and throwing it out of the window, which I had
meanwhile opened. I learnt another fact — nitric acid
not only acts upon copper but it acts upon fingers. The
pain led to another unpremeditated experiment. I drew
my fingers across my trousers and another fact was
discovered. Nitric acid acts upon trousers.

200

IRA REMSEN

" Taking everything into consideration, that was the
most impressive experiment, and, relatively, probably
the most costly I have ever performed. I tell of it even
now with interest. It was a revelation to me. It re-
sulted in a desire on my part to learn more about that
remarkable kind of action. Plainly the only way to learn
about it was to see its results, to experiment, to work in
a laboratory."

The boy tasted experiment, and he liked it well; he
tasted it again, and he liked it better. Plainly, chem-
istry had something to it provided you could handle things
and see things.

Without any instruction beyond what he could get
from the text-book and his own independent investi-
gations, Remsen was next asked to act as lecture-
assistant to the professor who had so well undertaken to
develop the young man's chemical knowledge. Remsen
was required to prepare experiments which he himself
had never performed, and had never seen; the results
can be imagined. He was further requested to form a
" quiz " class in chemistry — a request asking " the
blind man to lead the blind." Success again was
unavoidable, was it not? Here we get our first glimpse
of science teaching in America in the sixties. Only by
comparing its status then with what it is now can we
form an opinion of the enormous change that sixty years
have wrought.

Remsen was pretty well disgusted with the teacher,
but not with chemistry. But chemistry could not yet
be taken up. His father said that he was to be a phy-
sician, and a physician he had to be ; but if a medical
man, he was at least going to some college with a better
reputation. The father mildly protested, and so did
the professor, but nevertheless Remsen entered his
15 201

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

name as a student of the College of Physicians and
Surgeons of Columbia University.

In 1867, at the age of 21, Remsen graduated as doctor
of medicine. For a thesis, which was required of every
member of the graduating class, he selected a subject
dealing with the fatty degeneration of the liver. Ad-
dressing the Medical Faculty of Maryland in 1878,
Remsen referred to this thesis as follows :

" Eleven years ago, in company with 99 others, I was
proclaimed fit to enter upon the career of a medical man.
My erudition in medical matters was exhibited in a
thesis on the Fatty Degeneration of the Liver, a sub-
ject on which I was and am profoundly ignorant. I had
in fact never seen a liver which had undergone fatty
degeneration, nor a patient who possessed, or was sup-
posed to possess one; nor, I may add have I had that
pleasure up to this day."

And yet Remsen got one of the two prizes offered for
the best theses! The College of Physicians and Sur-
geons, since grown into the well-known " P. and S."
school, was then perhaps a little better than the worst of
its type, but very, very far from acceptable. There were
no acceptable medical colleges in the United States.
Johns Hopkins had not yet shown the way.

What was Remsen to do now? True, his precepter,
the "professor," offered him a partnership in his
lucrative practise; but aside from any repugnance in
going forth to kill when he could do that but clumsily, he
really did not like medicine at all. The little experiment
with copper and nitric acid still lingered in his mind.

But if a chemist, where was he to go to get his in-
struction? The big chemical laboratories at Harvard,
at Chicago, at California, at Illinois, at Columbia,
familiar to the student of to-day, were yet to be born.
Harvard was a possibility, but small in comparison with

202

IRA REMSEN

research centers on the continent. Remsen had read
Liebig's Chemical Letters. Liebig was the great
chemist of Germany, with but one rival, Wohler. Every-
body spoke of Liebig; even the child in the street had
heard of Liebig's beef extract.

We are not told how well Remsen's father received the
young man's proposed change of program. Whether
well or otherwise, the younger man triumphed. Towards
the end of the summer in 1867 the M.D. set out for
Munich.

Arriving in Munich, Remsen had his first hopes dashed
to the ground by being told that Liebig no longer received
students. All he did at this time was to give a lecture
course in inorganic chemistry. The young foreigner
then was forced to turn to the most promising privat-
docent in Liebig' s laboratory, who happened to be
Jacob Volhard. In Volhard's laboratory Remsen re-
ceived his first systematic instruction in chemistry.
Up to that time he had never made the simplest analysis ;
he had only performed the crudest experiments for
lecture purposes.

He spent two semesters in Munich, from October
1867 to August 1868, working in Volhard's laboratory.
The privat-docent had few students — sometimes Rem-
sen was the only one in the laboratory. This was an
extremely fortunate circumstance for the American;
he received private instructions from one of the best
laboratory manipulators of the day. Remsen also
attended Liebig's course of lectures.

At the end of the year Volhard advised him to go to a
larger laboratory and suggested Gottingen. Fortunately,
Wohler, the professor at Gottingen, was then in Munich,
on a visit to his old friend Liebig. Through Volhard
Remsen secured an introduction to Wohler, who told
hmi that he would be very welcome in Gottingen.

203

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

Wohler kept his promise; he even procured a nice
lodging for the young man.

Remsen came to work directly under Fittig, then pro-
fessor extraordinarius at Gottingen. In due time the
undergraduate became a research worker, with the
oxidation of xylene (a compound closely allied to ben-
zene) as a subject to work upon. The outcome of this
research was sufficiently promising to warrant Fittig
suggesting another line of work, this time connected
with a method of synthesis which Fittig had inaugurated,
and which still bears his name. This was not so suc-
cessful.

To complete his requirements for the Ph.D., Remsen
undertook another investigation, — one dealing with
piperic acid. The results of this work were embodied
in his dissertation presented to the faculty of the uni-
versity in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the
degree of doctor of philosophy, and later published in
the Annalen der Chemie. Early in 1870 he received
the doctor's degree.

Remsen was about to return home when Fittig re-
ceived a call to Tubingen to succeed Strecker, where-
upon Fittig suggested that Remsen should accompany
him to Tubingen as an assistant. To this Remsen
gladly assented. In Tubingen he remained for two
years, acting as lecturer and laboratory assistant, and
utilized his spare time in carrying on investigations of
his own.

In Tubingen, also, Remsen made the acquaintance of
William Ramsay, — then a young undergraduate but
recently arrived from England — under somewhat dra-
matic circumstances. " Ramsay appeared in the labor-
atory for the first time. Ringing for a long time at the
door he was finally answered by a young man in overalls.
' Konnen sie mir sagen wo ist die Vorlesungszimmer? '

204

IRA REMSEN

queried Ramsay. This was shocking German, but he
had done the best he could with his phrase book."
The " young man in overalls," who was none other than
Remsen, looked at the stranger, paused, and then said,
" Oh! I guess you want the lecture-room! H

Remsen and Ramsay became great chums. Around
them they gathered most of the English, Scotch and
American students in Gottingen. A baseball club was
formed, in which the English (including the present
Lord Milner ) and Scotch took part, but not the Germans.
Then there was skating on the ice winter afternoons,
and — sometimes — dinner parties in the evening, when
Ramsay entertained the company with " A fine Old
English Gentleman," to his own accompaniment.

In 1872 Remsen returned to the United States after
having spent nearly five years in Germany. He was
now a university man, appreciated university life, and
could conduct research. But what opening was there
for such a man?

He wandered to Philadelphia, and there completed a
translation of Wohler's Organische Chemie which he
had begun in Tubingen, and which H. C. Lea and
Company had promised to publish. But what next?
At times he lost faith and became despondent. He had
given up one profession, prepared himself for the
practise of another, and apparently every position was
filled and every opportunity had been seized by some-
one else. His long absence from the country and his
change of pursuit had left him with practically no one
to look to for help and advise.

After some months of fruitless endeavour to get some-
thing, he received an offer from the University of
Georgia, and close upon this offer came another, from
Williams College. Offers, like sorrows, come not in
single file, but in battalions.

205

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

Remsen accepted the appointment at Williams College
as professor of physics and chemistry. When he got
there he found the cupboard bare — Williams College
possessed no laboratory! A mild request for one
received the following answer from the president:
" You will please keep in mind that this is a college and
not a technical school. The students who come here
are not to be trained as chemists or geologists or
physicists. They are to be taught the great fundamental
truths of all sciences. The object aimed at is culture,
not practical knowledge." With which immortal dis-
course the great man dismissed the subject. At the
end of a year, the board of trustees did, however, build
Remsen a small laboratory for his own use, and here,
amid such discouragement, he prosecuted research on
the action of ozone on carbon monoxide, on phosphorus
trichloride, and on derivatives of benzoic acid. The
results were published in the American Journal of
Science and in the Berichte der deutschen chemischen
Gesellschaft.

" I remember," writes Remsen, " that once after
the appearance of one of my articles in the American
Journal of Science, we had a faculty meeting in the
college library. Someone picked up the number of the
journal containing my article, and some good-natured
fun was poked at me when an attempt was made to
read the title aloud. I felt that in the eyes of my col-
leagues I was rather a ridiculous subject." Remsen was
only 27 then, and over-sensitive.

So four years were passed. In the meantime, a book
on Theoretical Chemistry, which Remsen had written
during his many despondent hours, proved an extra-
ordinary success. The novel method of presentation,
the systematic arrangement, a rare clearness and sim-
plicity in style, afforded it a welcome among all scientific

206

IRA REMSEN

workers. It passed through five editions, and was trans-
lated into German and Russian.

Later, when at Johns Hopkins, Remsen wrote a
number of books on inorganic and organic chemistry,
with almost unvarying success. Had his reputation to
rest on nothing more than author of such text-books, he
would find no inconspicuous place in the history of
chemistry in America.

Then in 1876 came that great change in universities
in the United States with the establishment of a graduate
school at Johns Hopkins, in Baltimore. Huxley, then
in this country, very appropriately ushered hi the new
era by an address of welcome. Gildersleeve, the Greek
scholar, Rowland, the physicist, and Sylvester, the
mathematician, were appointed to form a nucleus of
promising scholars. To this trio was added Ira Remsen
as professor of chemistry. He was then thirty years old.

The position could not have been more ideal. Em-
phasis was to be placed upon advanced, graduate work,
the professors were expected to do research, and the
necessary facilities were to be provided to the extent
that money could provide them. There were no petty
restrictions of any kind. " Do your best work and do
it in your own way." That was the only advice Presi-
dent Gilman had to offer.

In May, 1877, Remsen delivered his first lecture on
advanced organic chemistry to a small group of students
huddled together in a room which has since become a
storeroom for odds and ends. Research was begun
immediately. Regular weekly meetings to discuss
current topics were also introduced. "... nowhere
else [in America], so far as I know, had the advanced
students been taken in and given an opportunity to
acquire the habit of familiarizing themselves with the
current progress of the science and of perfecting them

207

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

selves in the art of giving concise and lucid expression
to the information acquired in the course of their
reading." 1

The extensive series of researches begun in 1877 and
carried on without a break well into the twentieth century
dealt with various phases of organic chemistry. Perhaps
the most interesting outcome from a practical stand-
point was the preparation of orthobenzoic sulphinide, or
saccharin^ in 1879. This substance, obtained from
toluene, a product of coal tar, is unique in being five
hundred times as sweet as sugar. In spite of the more
than 100,000 carbon compounds that have been pre-
pared, no substance similar to it in sweetness has ever
been unearthed. And the wonder increases when we
remember that, chemically, saccharin and sugar have
nothing in common.

At first Remsen sent his contributions to Prof. J. D.
Dana for the American Journal of Science, but soon the
amount of matter grew to such proportions, that it fright-
ened poor Dana. The work was of such a specialised
character; perhaps it would be more desirable to send
such contributions to foreign journals? queried Dana.

Remsen felt that the time had come to found a chemi-
cal journal in America. With this in view, he got into
touch with the leaders of science. Most of them dis-
couraged the plan; very few had anything to say in
favor of it. Despite this cold reception, he started the
American Chemical Journal in 1879. It proved a suc-
cess from the start. Workers from all over the country
began to flood the publication with contributions. As a
stimulant to research in chemistry at various scientific
centers, the Journal stood in the same relation as John

1 Prof. H. N. Morse, Director of the Johns Hopkins Dept. of
Chemistry.

208

IRA REMSEN

Hopkins University did towards the other universities
of the country.

For many years, and long after influential scientific
centers had sprung up in the United States, the American
Chemical Journal continued to be the sole medium for
the publication of American chemical research. In the
beginning of the twentieth century the Journal of the
American Chemical Society, the official organ of the
American Chemical Society, came to the forefront, and
in 1914, Remsen's journal, its purpose served, was dis-
continued.

In the last number of the American Chemical Journal
Remsen says: "The American Chemical Society has
grown to great importance and is amply prepared to
provide for the publication of all articles on chemical
subjects likely to be prepared in this country. . . .
Taking everything into consideration it now seems
best to the editor to place the control of his journal in
the hands of the society. It is needless for him to say
that after 35 years of editorial work he does not now
withdraw from it without a feeling of deep regret. His
earnest hope is that the step may prove wise."

During the absence of President Oilman in Europe
in 1889-90 Remsen served as acting president of Johns
Hopkins, and in 1901, when President Oilman retired
from office, he was elected as Oilman's successor. This
office he held with marked distinction until 1912, when
he resigned.

During his tenure of the presidency what distinguished
it particularly was the perfect freedom he allowed pro-
fessors. He realized that " every man does his best
work when he is allowed to do it in his own way."
" The many criticisms that in recent times have been
directed toward this [the president's] office in our
American institutions are certainly not applicable to him.

209

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

He never abused the power placed in his hands, there
has been no autocratic interference with the autonomy
of the individual departments, and above all there has
been no suspicion of indirection in his dealings with his
staff. We have had implicit confidence in his motives.
. . . We have been very contented, happy, and prosper-
ous under his administration." 1

It has been pointed out how, first as writer, then as
investigator, and finally as editor, Remsen's influence
upon chemical research in America has been profound;
as teacher, it was no less so. " I will only say, as many
others have said before me in effect, that I have never
seen his equal as a master of simple and lucid exposition
... as a teacher of many other teachers, his influence,
direct and remote, has been and will continue to be of
incalculable value to American students of chemistry." 2

His former students are some of our very best chem-
ists to-day: Orndorff of Cornell; (the late) H. C. Jones
of Johns Hopkins; W. A. Noyes, Illinois; Kohler, Har-
vard; C. H. Herty, editor of the Journal of Industrial and
Engineering Chemistry; J. F. Norris, Mass. Inst. of
Technology; S. R. McKee, Columbia; E. E. Reed, of
Johns Hopkins; and Burton and Gray, superintendent
and chief chemist respectively of the chemical depart-
ment of the Standard Oil Company.

Several attempts to induce Remsen to leave Baltimore
for other and more lucrative positions, proved futile.
The University of Chicago made a particularly tempting
offer, but Remsen remained true to Johns Hopkins.
" This is my birth for life," he said in an address to
the students.

When Remsen went to Williams as a very young man
the students " had it in for him," so some of them con-

1 W. H. Howell, prof, of physiology at Johns Hopkins.

2 Prof. H. N. Morse.

210

IRA REMSEN

fessed quite frankly later. With time the students'
desire to make it " hot " for the teacher gave place to a
desire to please. Rernsen with his simplicity, his
humor, his interesting methods of presenting the subject,
made himself very much liked. At Johns Hopkins he
was extremely popular because, in addition to sound
scholarship, he had so much of the milk of human
kindness; he forgave much.

One point, however, about which he was very particular
was punctuality. A story is told of him in this respect.
While engaged in a lecture upon some of the chemical
elements, he was in the act of describing some attributes
of sulphur. As he uttered the first syllable, " sul — ,"
the door in the back of the room opened and a young
man noted for his habitual lateness entered. The in-
structor stopped short and stood with the word half
uttered while the abashed student, in the midst of an
awful and soul-oppressing silence, made his hasty way
to a seat. Then with a tone of strong relief, and with
the interest of each student intensified upon him,
Remsen suddenly gave expression to the concluding
syllable of his word — " phur! "

At the request of the National Board of Health of
Baltimore, Remsen, in 1881, undertook an investigation
into the organic matter in the air, and a study of the
impurities in the air of rooms heated by hot air furances
and by stoves. Similar work was done for the city of
Boston. In 1882 he became a member of the National
Academy of Sciences, and in 1884 served on a com-
mittee appointed to investigate the glucose industry of
the United States. Another committee upon which he
served dealt with the question of the processes employed
in denaturing alcohol.

In 1909 President Roosevelt appointed Remsen chair-
man of a board of consulting scientific experts to aid

211

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

the Secretary of Agriculture in matters pertaining to
the administration of the pure food law. The other
members of this board were Dr. R. H. Chittendon,
Director of the Sheffield Scientific School; Dr. J. H.
Long, Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Chem-
ical Laboratories in Northwestern University; Dr. C. A.
Herter, Professor of Pharmacology and Therapeutics,
Columbia University; Dr. A. E. Taylor, Professor of
Pathology and head of the Department, University of
California; now Professor of Physiological Chemistry in
the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Herter died in De-
cember, 1910, and Dr. Theobald Smith, Professor of
Comparative Pathology in the Harvard Medical School,
was appointed to fill his place. The Board was gener-
ally known as the " Remsen Board."

Dr. Wiley, chief chemist of the U. S. Department of
Agriculture, selected a number of men as subjects for
investigation on the assimilation of benzoate of soda.
These men came to be known as the " poison squad."
Dr. Wiley declared that in experiments which had lasted
some twenty days, a number of the men had become ill.
The maximum amount of the sodium benzoate given to
any one man, and distributed over the twenty days was
one and two-thirds ounces.

Dr. Wiley's conclusion did not pass unchallenged.
Some authorities declared that the fever of the young
men was due to nothing more than an epidemic of grip
which was then raging. Neither were the experiments
themselves considered very satisfactory. The majority
of the individuals had been used in previous experiments
where they had been made ill ; and the sodium benzoate,
instead of being distributed in the food — just as it is
when used as a preservative — was given to the patients
in capsules.

212

IRA REMSEN

The members of the " Remsen Board " repeated
Wiley's experiments, working quite independently of
one another. The assistants took from one-third of a
gram to six grams (1/5 oz.) daily, and in no instance
were any ill-effects noticed. Now the law allowed no
more than 0.3 gram of sodium benzoate for one pound
of beef, which was only one-twentieth of what the
assistants had received.

In 1914 the " Remsen Board " reported on the use
of alum in baking powders; this they found to be non-
injurious, provided too large quantities were not used.
Large amounts provoke catharsis, due to the sodium
sulphate which results from the reaction. The general
conclusion drawn was that alum baking powder was no
more harmful than any other baking powder ; but possi-
ble secondary effects due to chemical reactions between
the ingredients made it seem advisable to recommend
that food leavened with alum baking powder should be
used in moderate quantities only.

Remsen has been the recipient of many honors. The
LL.D. was conferred upon him by Columbia in 1893;
Princeton, 1896; Yale, 1901; Toronto, 1902; Harvard,
1909; and Pennsylvania, 1910. In 1898 he was elected
a Foreign Fellow of the London Chemical Society, and
in 1911, a Foreign Member of the French Chemical
Society. In 1902 he was elected to the presidency of
the American Chemical Society, and in the following
year to that of the American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science.

From 1907-1913 Remsen was President of the National
Academy of Sciences — the highest American scientific
distinction. The president preceding Remsen had been
Alexander Agassiz. In 1908 he was awarded the Gold
Medal of the Society of Chemical Industry (England),
and two years later became its president. In 1914 he

213

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

received the Willard Gibbs Medal of the Chicago Section
of the American Chemical Society.

Remsen was married in 1875 to Elizabeth H. Mallory,
a daughter of a New York merchant, who with his family
spent his summers in Williamstown. They have two
sons, Ira M. who is an artist, and Charles M., a surgeon,
practicing in Atlanta, Ga.

As President of Johns Hopkins, Remsen's time for
research was very limited. One of his reasons for
retiring from the presidency was a desire to return to
the love of his younger days, and this " return to the
fold " made him happy again. " The transformation
from university president to chemist is complete, and I
rejoice."

References

Part of the information comes from private sources.
Remsen's address before the Chicago section of the
American Chemical Society, delivered in 1914 (i)
contains much of biographical interest. For details
regarding the Tubingen days, Tilden's Sir William
Ramsay (2) has been of service. Other articles that
were found useful were 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8.

Remsen's celebrated article on saccharin was pub-
lished in the American Chemical Journal (9). He is
also the author of a number of well-known texts, refer-
ences to some of these being given (10, u, 12, 13, 14).

1. Ira Remsen: The Development of Chemical Research in

America. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 37,

i (1915)-

2. Sir W. A. Tilden: Sir William Ramsay (Macmillan and Co.

1918).

3. Anon.: Referee Board Reports on Alum Foods. American

Food Journal, May, 1914, p. 188.

4. Anon. : A Vindication of Benzoate of Soda from the attacks of

Dr. Wiley. Current Literature, 52, 304 (1912).

214

IRA REMSEN

5. Marcus Benjamin: Prof. Ira Remsen, President of the Ameri-

can Association for the Advancement of Science. Scientific
American, 88, ig (1903).

6. Anon.: Johns Hopkins' New President. Baltimore Sunday

Herald, Oct. 13, 1901.

7. Marcus Benjamin: Development of Chemistry in America.

The Star, May 25, 1890.

8. Anon.: The Resignation of President Remsen. The Johns

Hopkins University Circular, No. 10, 1912.

9. Ira Remsen and C. Fahlberg: On the Oxidation of Substitution

Products of Aromatic Hydrocarbons. IV. On the Oxidation
of Orthotoluenesulphamide. American Chemical Journal,
1, 426 (1879).

10. Ira Remsen: Principles of Theoretical Chemistry (H. C. Lea's

Son and Co., Philadelphia. 1883).

11. Ira Remsen: An Introduction to the Study of the Compounds

of Carbon (D. C. Heath and Co., Boston. 1906).

12. Ira Remsen: Elements of Chemistry (Macmillan and Co.

1887).

13. Ira Remsen: Inorganic Chemistry (Macmillan and Co. 1889).

14. Ira Remsen: A College Text-Book of Chemistry (Macmillan

and Co. 1908).

215

EMIL FISCHER

news has reached us that Emil Fischer
no more. Since the fateful August,
1914, Germany has lost her Ehrlich, her
Buchner and her Baeyer; England, her
Ramsay, Crookes and Moseley. Deaths occur, wars or
no wars ; yet Buchner might have lived had not a shell
cut short his existence ; and young Moseley had barely
started along his brilliant career when he, like the
promising Rupert Brooke, laid down his life for his
beloved England. Ramsay's end, we know, was
hastened by manifold war duties. To what extent
Fischer was a victim of the war is still unknown to us;
but we were told, from time to time, of his violent pan-
Germanism, doubtless encouraged by the exalted posi-
tion he held under the crown. The magnitude of
Germany's debacle would have crushed a spirit less
proud than Geheimer-Regierungsrat Fischer.

Whatever opinions we may have regarding Fischer's
political affiliations, there can be no question of his
position in the history of chemistry. His bitterest
enemies are the first to pay tribute. He easily takes his
place as the greatest organic chemist of our generation.

To appreciate his work a little more, we must look
into the state of the science when Fischer began his
labors. In those days — in the seventies — organic chem-
istry, or the chemistry of the compounds of carbon, was
a field for the most fruitful research. The addition of
carbon and hydrogen and oxygen atoms, and the vari-
ous rearrangements within a molecule, could be accom-
plished with such relative ease, that candidates wishing
16 217

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

to get a doctor's degree in the shortest time were readily
attracted to this branch of the science. New compounds
of carbon were being daily manufactured by the score
in Germany, England and France.

In many cases these compounds have remained of
interest to the writers of reference books only. A
number, however, found wider application in the dye
and drug industry.

That animal and vegetable life were largely made up
of carbon compounds, that the food we eat could be
largely divided into fat, proteins and carbohydrates, —
all this was known. If, then, a knowledge of the
composition of these substances, as truly belonging to
organic chemistry as marsh gas or benzene, was vague
and wholly unsatisfactory, this was due to the complexity
of their make-up. Chevreul and Berthollet had
cleared the situation in so far as the fats were con-
cerned, but the chemistry of the carbohydrates, and
particularly that of the proteins, remained as mysterious
as ever. The three foodstuffs were the borderland
where chemistry ended and biology began; the lack
of a solution of the composition of at least two of these
foodstuffs left the finishing touches of the edifice of
organic chemistry still undone, and gave a wholly un-
satisfactory foundation for the science of physiology.

To the solution of this problem Fischer pledged his
life while still a student, and brilliantly did he fulfil
his life's task. With an imagination tempered only
by a splendid scientific training, an originality of mind
which made a lasting impress upon every piece of work
with which he was associated, and a rare skill in devising
apparatus, he, first by his own labors, and later, as
director-general of an army of aspiring students, gradu-
ally unfolded the mysteries that had enshrined the most
complex chemical substances known to man. Like all

218

EMIL FISCHER

great contributions, his has added not only to our chemi-
cal knowledge, but has shed a flood of light on cognate
sciences, such as botany, zoology and physiology.

Fischer was born in Euskirchen, Rhenish Prussia, on
October 9, 1852. His father, Lorenz Fischer, was a
successful merchant whose success in business must
have made a deep impression upon his son, for Emil,
after matriculating the gymnasium in Bonn, joined his
father's concern at the age of seventeen.

This enthusiasm for the commercial world, however,
was short lived. Within two years he had abandoned
all thoughts of high finance, and has inscribed himself
as a student at Bonn University. Kukule, one of van't
Hoff's teachers, was the professor of chemistry, and
Engelbach and Zincke were his active assistants.
Fischer came in contact with all three.

The ill-omened Franco-German war had barely termi-
nated when the German government decided to found a
university at Strassburg. To this place, in the autumn
of 1817, Fischer, true to the German student's traditions,
came to spend part of his wanderjahre. The initial
training for a chemist required a sound course in in-
organic chemistry, particularly of an analytical kind.
Under Rose, Fischer was made acquainted with Bunsen's
methods for the analysis of water, an experience which
was of use when the young man undertook to do analyti-
cal work for the town of Colmar.

By the end of a year Fischer was ready for the next
step in the training of a chemist — a course in organic
chemistry. This brought him in contact with Adolf von
Baeyer, the professor of the subject.

Baeyer, a man of eighty, died recently in Munich.
He was the connecting link between Liebig and Wohler
on the one hand, and his own pupils who so brilliantly
carried on the best traditions of the great school of

219

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

organic chemistry which Liebig and Wohler had built.
To him, even when at the small Gewerbeakademie in
Berlin, came Graebe and Liebermann, whose synthesis
of alizarin has already been discussed (see Perkin);
and Victor Meyer, the conquering hero among chemists.
Fischer now came to pay homage. At a later date Will-
statter joined the little band of Baeyer's scholars.
Fischer and Baeyer are no more, but Willstatter, the
chlorophyll wizard, who has recently been appointed to
Baeyer's chair in Munich, bids fair to equal, if not out-
strip his master in quality and originality of work.

Fischer immediately came under the spell of Baeyer.
The professor was rapidly reaching the height of his
intellectual output. His amazing mastery of every
phase of the subject, the keen criticism to which every
piece of work was subjected, the fertility of his ideas,
combined with the fatherly care he took of his " child-
ren," the students, made Baeyer very popular with his
assistants and research workers, not least of all with
Fischer.

In July, 1874, Fischer completed an investigation on
the coloring matters fluorescein and orcin-phthalein, for
which he received his Ph.D. His immediate appoint-
ment to an assistantship was evidence that he had
already made an impression upon Baeyer, whose
faculty for detecting promising material was not the
least of his gifts.

In less than a year Fischer, with his discovery of
phenylhydrazine, forged to the very front rank of
organic chemists. Later this substance in his hands
proved the most effective tool in synthesising the sugars,
which are typical members of the carbohydrate family.
To-day the osazone test for sugars, a test depending
upon the use of this same phenylhydrazine, is among
the commonest and the most effective methods used by

220

EMIL FISCHER

the chemist, the physiologist and the clinician for the
isolation and detection of the sugars.

Little wonder, then, that when Baeyer in this same year
was selected to succeed Liebig in Munich, he was desir-
ous that young Fischer should accompany him. This,
of course, was just what Fischer wanted.

For the next three years Fischer held no official posi-
tion at the University of Munich. As events proved,
this was the most fortunate thing that could have
happened. He had no students to instruct, no labor-
atory work to supervise; the entire time could be de-
voted to research.

And how well did Fischer make use of this time!
With phenylhydrazine as the starting point, the various
derivatives of this parent substance were investigated,
and its relationship to a group of substances that act
as " intermediates " in the manufacture of dyes — the
diazo compounds, was clearly established. The ease
with which phenylhydrazine combines with other sub-
stances gave rise to an almost endless series of new
compounds. To us of particular interest is its combina-
tion with two important classes of organic compounds
known as the aldehydes and he tones — a discovery
which found direct application in the chemistry of the
sugars. Victor Meyer, by the use of hydroxylamine, a
substance closely related to ammonia, had also shown
how the aldehydes and ketones could be recognized.
Starting from two different angles, Meyer and Fischer,
who became the closest of friends, and whom Baeyer
regarded as his two most talented pupils, met on com-
mon ground. Between them they opened up two vast
chapters hi organic chemistry.

At the same time, Fischer, in collaboration with his
cousin Otto Fischer, began an investigation of the
rosaniline dyestuffs — the magenta of Perkin — which

221

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

terminated in the brilliant discovery that these dyes
were all derivatives of a base triphenylme thane.

The importance of this work may be gauged when we
reflect that Otto Fischer owed his appointment as pro-
fessor at Erlangen to this investigation, and its possi-
bilities are such that all of Otto Fischer's subsequent
contributions have largely centered around the pioneer
work in which his cousin played such a leading part.

Genius will out, and recognition came quickly. Fisch-
er was made privat-docent in 1878, and at the end of the
year was promoted to the extraordinary professorship
and given entire charge of the analytical department in
Baeyer's laboratory.

Then began those classical investigations into the
active constituents of coffee and tea, caffeine and
theobromine, and their relationship to xanthine and
guanine — decomposition products obtained from the
protein in the nucleus of cells — which ultimately opened
up an entirely new chapter in plant and animal chemistry.

In the Easter of 1882 Fischer accepted a call as full
professor (ordinarius) to Erlangen, and three years later
he exchanged this chair for one in Wurzburg.

Fischer was not much over thirty when he assumed
charge in Wurzburg, yet the ten years which had passed
since he had received the doctor's degree had been put
to such good use that he already belonged to the four
or five leading chemists of Germany.

Thus far his work had been carried out with little
assistance, but now, as an ordinarius, research students
were not wanting, particularly in view of Fischer's
eminence. Under his supervision a fine new laboratory
was built, and with his active co-operation his students
continued work on indol, uric acid and the sugars.

After many weary trials, Fischer managed to syn-
thesise the most important sugars — among them fruit

222

EMIL FISCHER

and grape sugar — and also to prepare many new ones
artificially. It was in the course of this intricate and
laborious work that he had occasion to put van't Hoff
and Le Bel's theory of the asymmetric carbon atom to
exhaustive tests, with results which established the
theory more firmly than ever.

This work on the sugars threw some light on the
method by which carbohydrates are formed in the
plant. We know that the carbon dioxide and the
moisture are taken up from the air by the plant and, in
the presence of chlorophyll, are first probably converted
to glucose, then to starch and fat and, in the presence of
nitrogen obtained from the soil, partly to protein.
Baeyer's theory of the first part of the reaction is that the
carbon dioxide and moisture combine to form formalde-
hyde (" formalin "), liberating oxygen, and that by poly-
merization, or a method of coalescing, the formaldehyde
molecules condense to form a molecule of sugar.

This theory received its first experimental support
when Butler off showed that formaldehyde in the presence
of lime water yielded a sugar-like mixture. It was left,
however, for Fischer to prove that this sugar-like mixture
contained a small quantity of a substance, a-acrose,
which he was able to transform into glucose. Fenton
completed the cycle by his success in converting carbon
dioxide into formaldehyde at a low temperature.

Thus the initial chemical processs in the plant were
in1 a measure duplicated in the chemist's laboratory.
Even the conditions of normal temperature under which
these reactions proceed in the plant were fulfilled. But
the well-nigh 100 per cent efficiency of the plant could
not be even distantly approached.

The mechanism of the reverse process, by which such
a substance as glucose is oxidised in the body to carbon
dioxide and water, is hardly better known. We do

223

N:

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

know that oxidising ferments facilitate the reaction at
body temperature, and the work of Dakin and Lusk in
this country has made it seem probable that a glycerin-
like substance or substances, and lactic acid, are im-
portant intermediate products.

Thus, as in simpler chemical reactions, the beginning
and end of the reaction are clear, but again like any
chemical reaction, the intermediate steps are very
difficult to elucidate.

It was in the course of these epoch-making experi-
ments on the sugars, when phenylhydrazine was con-
stantly used, that Fischer began to suffer with chronic
poisoning, due to the inhalation of the vapors of this
substance. Its effects he never got rid of, and from
then on he was more or less of a semi-invalid. This
might perhaps explain why in after years students found
him somewhat of a " grouch " and quite unapproachable.
The testimony of some of his students at Wiirzburg
seems to bear conclusive witness to the fact that in
those days, at least, he was not only an inspiring leader
and lecturer, but took a very active interest in his re-
search men. It was no uncommon thing to see him
spend a couple of hours at the desk of one of his students,
not only discussing the problem and offering suggestions,
but actually illustrating experimental methods of pro-
cedure. Such illustrations were simply priceless in
value to the young kandidat, for Fischer was a master
manipulator as well as a master thinker. '"

Like Victor Meyer and Ramsay and van't Hoff, the
appointment to a full professorship made feasible his
marriage to the lady he had long courted, • Fraulein
Agnes Gerlach. The two made a striking pair. Both
were tall and handsome, with intellect and wit a-plenty.
Their son, Hermann, has faithfully followed in his
father's footsteps.

224

EMIL FISCHER

In 1892 came the crowning event of his career. A. W.
mann, who had been professor at the Royal School
emistry in London for some years, and had there
taught such men as Crookes and Perkin, and had then
been appointed to the chair of chemistry at Berlin Uni-
versity, died, amLFischer was selected to succeed him.
This was a sig^fcionor, for the Prussian Ministry of
Education left i^^sfene unturned to make Berlin the
foremost center of learning and research in the Empire,
and only men whose standing in the world of scholarship
was universally conceded, were at all considered.
Fischer^tipulated that he would accept the position
nly on c^dition that a new laboratory would be built
r him. He had in mind his splendidly-equipped labor-
atory in Wurzburg, where the authorities provided him
with ample facilities and gave him unrestricted freedom
to equft) the chemistry building with the best and the
latest ^novations. The Berlin authorities promised the
new laboratory, and so Fischer moved to his new home.
Fojy years, however, were to pass before the foundation-
for the new structure was to be laid. This was
the bad financial condition of the university.
Berlin Fischer continued his work on the sugars,
fact that many of these bring about fermentation
Fischer to fruitful studies on the possible consti-
ferments and their relationship to the substance
n. This subject of ferments, or enzymes,
is (•Ben tremendous significance in the activity of all
life-]!Pb*cesses, that it merits a somewhat detailed
discussion.

The word^izyme comes from a Greek word meaning
" in yeas^' w>erhaps the most acceptable definition in

flight of recent scientific research is to say that it is a
stance showing the properties of a catalyst and pro-
ed as a result of cellular activity.

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

But what is a catalyst? The reader may recall his
first very simple experiment in the preparation of oxy
Here the instructor tells the bewildered youth
you put a little potassium chlorate in a test tube and heat
this very strongly, a gas is evolved which can be identi-
fied as oxygen. Now by merely addin^a small quantity
of a dirty black-looking powdej, caMfcmanganese di-
oxide, to the potassium chlorate, the^Qrgen is evolved
much more rapidly and at a much lower temperature.
But this is not all. A careful examination at the end of
the reaction shows that the manganese dioxide has not
changed in any way: we have the same substonce, and
the same amount, at the end of the reactioIRs at th<
beginning. Many such substances are known to chem
ists. They all have this peculiarity: that they accel-
erate chemical reactions,1 and that a relatively small,
at times insignificant quantity of the substance suffices
to bring about the chemical change.

In cells we find substances of this type, but thus far
these cellular " catalysts," unlike the manganese di
and like proteins, have never been produced outsi
the cell.

When we consider that life is possible only because
continued cellular activity, and when we bear in
that this activity is largely the result of chemical ch
brought about by these enzymes, the param
portance of these substances becomes manifest.

Alcoholic fermentation with yeast, the so
milk, processes of putrefaction, and various other^ ex-
amples of changes in organic materials with, often
enough, the accompanying liberation of bibles of gas,
had long been known. The epoch-makii^ researches^
of Pasteur had shown that fermentations and putr^
factions were inaugurated by the presence of lii

1 Cases are known where they retard chemical reactions.

226

EMIL FISCHER

organisms. Then extracts from the saliva and the
gastric mucosa of the stomach were obtained which also
had the power of bringing about chemical changes in
carbohydrates and proteins. This led to the classi-
fication of ferments into those which, like yeast and
certain bacteria, acted because of certain vital processes
(organised ferments), and those which, like the extracts
from the saliva and stomach, were presumably " non-
living unorganized substances of a chemical nature "
(unorganised ferments) Kiihne designated the latter
enzymes. This classification was generally accepted,
and the " vitalists " held absolute sway until 1897, when
Emil Buchner, fired by Fischer's work, overthrew the
whole theory by a series of researches which, in their
influence, were only second in importance to those of
Pasteur in an earlier generation.

One of Buchner's classical experiments consisted in
grinding yeast cells with sand and infusorial earth, and
then subjecting the finely pulverized material to a
pressure of 300 atmospheres — a pressure far more than
enough to destroy yeast, or any other cells. The liquid
so obtained had all the fermentative properties of the
living yeast cell. Obviously, then, the living cell could
not be responsible for the fermentation. On the other
hand, this experiment did suggest that cellular activity
gave rise to some substance which, once produced,
exerts its influence whether the cell is alive or dead. All
subsequent experiments have but strengthened the con-
viction that cells do produce these substances, and that
the chemical changes are due not to the living organ-
isms, but to the lifeless substances (enzymes) to which
the se organisms give rise.

Minute in quantity, and tenaciously adhering to sub-
stances present, particularly protein, the isolation of an
enzyme in the pure state has become one of the most

227

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

difficult problems in physiological chemistry. Yet any
elementary student in the subject finds little difficulty
in performing simple experiments which convince him
either of the presence or the absence of the enzyme.

The method consists essentially in making use of the
so-called " specificity " of enzymes, a conception for
which Fischer is largely responsible.

Fischer's synthetic work in the sugar series, particu-
larly his studies into the configuration of cane sugar,
maltose and lactose, received a great impetus from the
success which attended his efforts in preparing gluco-
sides — combinations of glucose and one or more other
substances — artificially. By the study of emulsin, and
other enzymes in yeast, on such glucosides, Fischer
found that the slightest change in the configuration of
the glucoside inhibited the action of the enzyme. Zy-
mase, another enzyme in yeast, which is directly re-
sponsible for the conversion of glucose into alcohol,
behaved similarly. This led him to the conclusion that
a close chemical relationship exists between the enzyme
and the substance on which it acts — a view which led
to his famous analogy of the lock and key relationship.
Just as one key fits one lock, so any one enzyme will
act on only a certain type of substance.

Take, for example, the enzyme found in saliva,
ptyalin; it readily acts on the carbohydrate, starch, but
has no action on protein. Again take the pepsin of the
stomach: this enzyme breaks down proteins, but is
without result on carbohydrates. These instances may
be multiplied indefinitely.

Some enzymes show their specificity to an even more
marked degree. Fischer's work has given us beautiful
illustrations. Even in the yeast cell we find one,
sucrase, which acts only on cane sugar (sucrose), but
on no other sugar or any carbohydrate.

228

EMIL FISCHER

In the winter of 1894 Fischer resumed his earlier work
on uric acid and caffeine. After three years he suc-
ceeded in synthetically producing every constituent of
the group, and traced them all to a mother substance to
which he gave the name of purin (a word suggested by
the phrase purum uricurri).

The chemist, the physiologist and the pathologist
can but wonder at such genius. Here are the most
complex and the most important class of protein bodies,
the so-called nucleoproteins, which as their name
implies, are found in the nucleus of the cell, and which,
hi the course of their chemical decomposition in the
body, give rise to xanthine, hypoxanthine, adanine,
guanine, etc. — all typical purines; here are these
purines which, in their further travels in the body, come
to the liver, where a large percentage of them are oxi-
dised to uric acid — another member of the purine family.
This same uric acid is a never-failing constituent of the
urine, and its quantity gives valuable data regarding
nucleoprotein metabolism in the body, — of paramount
importance in such a disease as gout. The inter-
relationship of these complex purines, as well as their
relationship to plant analogues, such as caffeine and
theobromine, have been as thoroughly probed by Fischer
as the composition of water or that of air. He has gone
even further. Having found relationships, and having
traced the substances to one mother substance, he has
succeeded in building them all up from this mother
substance — a piece of work which, with but one excep-
tion, finds no equal in synthetic chemistry.

The one exception is Fischer's crowning series of re-
searches on the proteins. No work approaching this
had ever been done before.

The proteins are the most important of the three
classes of foodstuffs. Without them cellular growth and

229

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

repair would be impossible. The belief has been
general that the elucidation of their constitution would
open up the key to some of life's great mysteries.

Fischer was not the first to tackle this problem of
problems, but he was the first to give the lead in the
right direction.

As a result of nearly a century's labor by many chem-
ists and physiologists) the proteins have been shown to
be made up of combinations of much simpler substances,
the amino-acids, the first and simplest of which, glycine,
was synthesised years ago by Perkin. The process by
which these ammo-acids are obtained from proteins is
known as hydrolysis, because water plays an indispens-
able part in the reaction; and this hydrolysis can be
brought about either by the use of acids, alkalies or such
enzymes as pepsin and trypsin, which are found in the
stomach and pancreas respectively. The changes that
the protein undergoes in the stomach and the small
intestine can be duplicated in the laboratory, and it is
then shown that this hydrolysis proceeds in stages, giving
us metaproteins, primary proteoses, secondary proteoses,
peptones, polypeptids and amino acids — all more or
less well-defined substances, whose chemical complexity
is greatest at the protein end, and simplest at the amino-
acid end.

The crude physical methods of classifying proteins
have pointed to the fact that there are some 40 to 50 in
number. All of these, when hydrolysed, give a large
percentage of the 19 amino-acids which are common to
most proteins; the differences among proteins is most
marked in the amount of the various amino-acids which
they yield when hydrolysed.

Due in no small part to the labors of Fischer and his
co-workers, most of these nineteen amino-acids have
been synthesised from simpler bodies.

230

— *

EMIL FISCHER

If the hydrolysis of proteins, and the investigation of
the decomposition products so produced was a difficult
task, what are we to say of the reverse process, whereby,
by starting with amino-acids, we build up proteins?

Yet that is what Fischer did. He succeeded in work-
ing out methods by which amino-acids could be chemi-
cally joined on to one another in some such way as the
links of a chain. He has given the name polypeptids
to such combinations of amino-acids.

In his most celebrated experiment in the synthesis of
proteins, Fischer succeeded in combining eighteen
amino-acids — an octadecapeptid — which is one of the
most complicated artificial substances that has ever
been produced, and which shows some very striking
resemblances to the natural proteins, not the least of
which is the way trypsin, the pancreatic enzyme, breaks
it up into the ammo-acids out of which the artificial
protein was built.

The enzymes, as the reader may remember, are
specific in their reaction. The trypsin is an enzyme
which acts only on proteins and on no other class of
substances; hence its action on Fischer's octadeca-
peptid is good evidence in support of the view that the
artificial product is really of the nature of at least the
simpler proteins. The starting materials for this
synthesis cost $250; "so that," says Fischer, "it has
not yet made its appearance on the dining table ! "

These glorious researches were still in full blast in
1902 when Fischer was awarded the Nobel prize in
Chemistry, the prizes in physics going to van't Hoff's
countrymen, H. A. Lorentz and Pieter Zeeman; in
medicine, to Ronald Ross, the malaria hero; and in
literature," to Theodor Mommsen, the Roman historian.
Fischer's diploma reads as follows :
17 231

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

CHIMIE

V Academic Royale des Sciences de Suide dans sa
seance du n novembre 1902, a decide conformement
aux prescriptions du testament d'Alfred Nobel en date
du 27 novembre 1895, de remettre le prix decerne cette
annee " a celui qui aura fait la decouverte ou ^invention
le plus importante dans la domain de la physique " a

EMIL FISCHER

en reconnaissance des merites eminents dont il a fait
preuve par ses travaux synthetiques dans les groupes
du sucre et de la purine.

Stockholm, le 10 decembre 1902.
Hj. Theel
CHR. AURIVILLIUS

If the sugars and the purines deserved the Nobel
prize, no prize yet founded is big enough and important
enough as a reward for Fischer's protein studies.

In 1907 the Faraday medal of the English Chemical
Society was presented to Fischer. This entailed a trip
to England to deliver the Faraday lecture — an invitation
which had been extended once before in 1895, but which
ill-health at the time prevented from accepting.

The historic lecture, largely taken up with a discussion
of the chemistry and significance of the three great
classes of foodstuffs, was delivered in the theatre of the
Royal Institution, on October i8th of that year, with
Sir William Ramsay, president of the Society, in the
chair. In presenting the medal Ramsay remarked that
it was awarded " as a testimony of our great regard for
you as our foreign member and of our affection for you
as a man." Within seven years a bloody war was to
twist affection into the deepest hatred.

232

EMIL FISCHER

Sir Henry Roscoe, a star pupil of Bunsen in Heidel-
berg, and for years professor of chemistry at Man-
chester University, had this to say in proposing a vote of
thanks to the Faraday Medallist: "I have had the
good fortune to hear many Faraday Lectures. I re-
member with pleasure the eloquence of Dumas; the
charm of Wurtz; and the thought and beautiful diction
of Helmholtz; but, Mr. President, I do not think that
any of our Faraday Lecturers have awakened greater
interest than the one to which we have just listened;
and this, not only because Emil Fischer is a master of
his subject, and because he has laid before us work
mainly accomplished by his own inventive brain and his
own able hands, but also because the subject of the
application of synthetical chemistry to biology, which the
lecturer has so ably brought before us, is one which at
the present moment is exceeded in intere-st and import-
ance by no other branch of the science, not even — if I
may be allowed, in the presence of the President, to
say so — by that of radioactivity. . . . When some years
ago we learnt that Emil Fischer had synthesised the
sugars, all chemists were loud in their expressions of
satisfaction and admiration.1 How much greater will
these expressions be now when we learn what success
has attended the apparently almost insoluble problem
of the synthesis of proteins. ..."

Since the time of Fischer's work various phases of pro-
tein chemistry and protein metabolism have been pur-
sued with much success by such men as Folin, Levene,
Dakin, Jones, Osborne, Van Slyke and T. B. Johnson, in
this country, Hopkins, E. F. Armstrong and Plimmer in
England, and Kossel and Abderhalden in Germany.

1 " His (Fischer's) name," said Roscoe on the occasion of the
Perkin Jubilee, " has the sweetest of tastes in the mouth of every
chemist."

233

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

The significance of individual amino-acids in diet has
been eloquently expounded by Abderhalden, and Mendel
and Osborne, and the additional " vitamine " factors
in diet — a distantly related topic, but not to be confused
with the amino-acid factor, — have been put on a firm
foundation by the labors of Funk, Hopkins and
McCollum.

There seems to be some foundation for the fact that
the opening up of the Rockefeller Institute in New York
City gave German scientists some very unpleasant
moments. They were afraid that an institute, devoted
entirely to research, and manned by talent second to
none, would soon outstrip any university, where of
necessity teaching, aside from research, required much
attention. This led Ostwald, Nernst and Fischer to
start an agitation for the endowment of some similar
institute in Germany. The Kaiser gave the full weight
of his authority to the scheme, and by his exertions
managed to get considerable sums from wealthy Ger-
mans. The Research Institute at Berlin — Dahlem was
the result.

The initial meeting to celebrate the formation of the
Kaiser Wilhelm-Gesellschaft zur Forderung der Wissen-
schaften was held at the offices of the Ministry of
Education in Berlin, on Jan. n, 1911.

The principal address, Recent Advances and Prob-
lems in Chemistry, was delivered by Prof. Fischer.

With a graceful tribute to the far-sighted policy of
the Germans in encouraging science, Fischer proceeded
to show that such encouragement brought its own reward.
Up to 191 1 sixty percent of the total number of Nobel
prizes in chemistry had gone to Germans.1

1 It needs perhaps to be emphasized here that, as Fischer him-
self admits, this excellent German showing is not the result of
superior German intelligence, but purely the result of far greater

234

EMIL FISCHER

Fischer next briefly reviewed the important contri-
butions of the chemist to our knowledge of the three
classes of foodstuffs, the development of the dye in-
dustry, the methods of extracting nitrogen from the air
for use as fertilisers, and the manufacture of artificial
indigo, india-rubber, camphor and " baekalite." l " The
beakers and flasks of the scientific investigator," added
Fischer, with a twinkle which always delighted his
students, " are minute when compared with the vats
employed by the chemical manufacturer. This relative
difference in size is also borne out by the comparative
wealth of these two classes of men."

Turning to plant and pharmaceutical products, Fischer
proceeded to exhibit a sample of pure chlorophyll, — the
work of Willstatter — and drugs such as veronal and
caffeine — both the products of Fischer's genius. Then
came this characteristic comment: " One tenth of this
quantity [of veronal] would suffice to send this entire
gathering into a peaceful slumber. But should the mere
demonstration of this soporific — coupled with this lec-
ture of mine — take effect on any susceptible persons
present, there is no better remedy than the cup of tea
which we are to enjoy later, for tea — and coffee —
contains a chemical substance [caffeine] which stimu-
lates the heart and nervous system."

government encouragement than is given elsewhere. In England,
France, and to a large extent, in our own country, the chemist —
and the scientist generally — received no attention from statesmen
until the outbreak of the present war. The disgraceful remunera-
tion offered at colleges, and, with few exceptions, the poor facilities
offered for research, have retarded every effort, and have resulted
in the loss to universities of some of their best minds. This was
before the war. Perhaps things will change now. Perhaps.

iThis last is the discovery of Dr. Baekeland of New York.
The " baekalite," as is now well known, resembles amber, and is
used for such articles as necklaces, combs, cigar-holders, etc.

235

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

" Caffeine," proceeded Fischer, " was now obtained
largely from uric acid, which, in its turn is a constituent
of guano.1 The chemist may apply to such substances
the remark made by the Emperor Vespasian concerning
the tax-money which came to him from an unclean
source: non elet (it does not smell)."

A sample of adrenalin, the active constituent of the
suprarenal glands, which plays such an important part
in the regulation of blood pressure, was also exhibited
and its value discussed, and with characteristic German
egotism, its isolation, chemical composition, as well as
its synthetic production, were claimed for Germans.
Not a word was said of Abel, of Johns Hopkins, the
pioneer in this field, nor, while touching on the fasci-
nating chapter of " hormones," or body regulators, was
any mention made of the two immortals and insepar-
ables, Bayliss and Starling, of University College,
London. However, what followed smacks of the now
celebrated " 2 and 75 percent." " A skin surface
well charged with blood — as for instance a red nose —
is instantly rendered quite pale on painting it with such
a solution." " Unfortunately," proceeded Fischer, amid
the shrieks of the audience, " it does not last."

Next, and the last among the list of drugs, came the
" 606," or salvarsan, the great discovery of Ehrlich,
who, by the way, composed one of the audience at this
lecture.

The final phase of the discourse dwelt upon the re-
markable development of the synthetic scents, which,
even in 1911, gave rise to a production of over ten
million dollars' worth, and which is now a serious com-
petitor of natural flowers. A sample of ionone, the
artificial violet scent, contained enough material, we

1 Uric acid is as important and characteristic an excrement of
birds as is urea of man.

236

EMU FISCHER

are told, " to envelop the entire avenue, Unter den
Linden,1 in an atmosphere of violet perfume." Samples
showing scents of lily-of-the-valley, mock-orange, lilac,
and, the greatest achievement of all, synthetic attar of
roses, were also displayed. This last was truly a
triumph of the chemist's skill. The natural oil from
roses contains no less than twenty different substances.
These were all isolated, then synthesised, and finally
reunited in just those proportions which give us the
pleasant odor of the much-prized rose.

Fischer's researches into the carbohydrates, purines
and proteins, is of such enormous importance that, at
the repeated requests of the scientific public, they were
published in book form in three bulky volumes, the first,
Untersuchungen Uber Amino-Sauren, Polypeptide und
Proteine (1899-1906), dealing with the proteins, the
second, Untersuchungen in der Purin Gruppe (1882-
1906), with the purines, and the third, Untersuchungen
liber Kohlenhydrate und Fermente (1884-1908), with
the carbohydrates and enzymes. It is certain that in
organic chemistry no three volumes of such far-reaching
influence have ever before been published.

Fischer's most recent work dealt much with the
tannins, substances that play an important part in leather
manufacture.

Fischer's work, his influence as teacher and inspirer
of men, raised the Berlin chemical laboratory to the
first position among the chemical laboratories of the
world. His fame attracted students from every quarter
of the globe, and these flocked in such numbers to him
that they soon counted in the hundreds, and special
privat-docenten had to be appointed to take care of
them. It thus came about that many of the men who

1 Berlin's principal thoroughfare.

237

EMINENT CHEMISTS OF OUR TIME

had gone to Berlin to work under Fischer in reality
worked under some of Fischer's privat-docenten, and,
outside of the lectures, probably did not see Fischer
himself more than two or three times during their three
or four years1 stay in the German capital. At one time
or another H. Gideon Wells, the excellent pathologist of
Chicago University, T. B. Osborne, of the Connecticut
Experimental Station, and the foremost authority on
vegetable proteins, and P. A. Levene, D. D. Van Slyke,
and W. A. Jacobs, the well-known physiological chemists
of the Rockefeller Institute, were his students. Of
his many pupils Fischer considered Emil Abderhalden,
now professor of physiology at Halle University, a Swiss
by birth, the most gifted.

Fischer's death is an irreparable loss to science. He
is so much of our generation that one hesitates to use
superlatives, but one is sorely tempted to speak of him
as the greatest organic chemist of all times.

References

Part of the material has been obtained from private
sources. The account of Fischer in the Nobel volume
(i) has been of great service. Fischer's work on purines,
carbohydrates and proteins has been published in book
form (2, 3, 4). His address to the members of the
English chemical society (5) contains much of interest.
See also 6. A summary of Fischer's work on tannins
has appeared in English (7). Enzymes are discussed in
Dr. Harrow's article (8).

1. Anon.: Hermann Emil Fischer. Les Prix Nobel (Stockholm),

1902, p. 58.

2. Emil Fischer: Untersuchungen in der Puringruppe, 1882-1906

(Julius Springer, Berlin. 1907).

3. Emil Fischer: Untersuchungen iiber Kohlenhydrate und Fer-

mente, 1884-1908 (Julius Springer, Berlin. 1909).
238

EMIL FISCHER

4. Emil Fischer: Untersuchungen u'ber Aminosauren, Polypeptide

und Proteine, 1899-1906 (Julius Springer, Berlin. 1906).

5. Emil Fischer: Synthetical Chemistry in its Relation to Biology.

Journal of the Chemical Society (London), 91 , 1749 (1907).

6. Emil Fischer: Recent Advances and Problems in Chemistry.

Nature (London), 85, 558 (1911).

7. Emil Fischer: Synthesis of Depsides, Lichin-Substances and

Tannins. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 36,
1170 (1914).

8. Benjamin Harrow: What are Enzymes? Scientific Monthly,

March (1918), p. 253.

239

INDEX

Names of persons are printed in italics.

Abderhalden, 233, 234, 238

Abegg, 130*

Abel, 236

Abraham, 115

Acetoacetic ester, 12

Acetylene, 136

Acheson, 148

Adrenalin, 236

Agassiz, 213

Aldehydes, 221

Alizarin, 8, 12

Althoff, 190

Alum in baking powders, 213

Aluminum, 149

Amino acids, 230, 234

Anderson, 44

Aniline, 6

Aniline purple. See mauve.

Anthracene, 9

Argo, 145

Argon, 48, 144

Armstrong, E. F., 233

Armstrong, H. E., 13
Anhenius, XII, XIV, 91, 92, 93,
95, 99, i H-I33, 153, 167, 168
Art, Mendeleeff on, 34
Asymmetric carbon atom, 93.

See stereo-chemistry.
Atomic theory, 165. See Dai-
ton.
Atomic weights, 24, 25, 62-64,

66, 67, 68, 69, 70
Atoms in Space, Structure of
(book by van'tiHoff), 85-88,

Auwers, 191
Avogadro, XI, XIV, 64
Ayrton, Mrs. Hertha, 168

Badische Analin-und-Soda-Fab-

rik, 6, 15
Baekeland, 14, 235
Baeyer, frontispiece, 6, 15, 100,
101, 180, 181, 183, 184, 185,
190, 191, 193, 217, 219, 220,
221, 223

Baeyer factory, 8
Baker, 145
Balard, 142
Bancroft, 93, 102, 105, 108, 122,

130

Baxter, 69
Bayliss, 236
Bechamp, 6
Beclere, 139
Becquerel, 160, 161, 168
Behring, von, 97, 129
Behal, 14

Beilstein, frontispiece, 15
Benjamin, 215
Benzene, 12

Benzoate of soda, 212, 213
Bernstein, 178, 179
Bernthsen, 15, 70
Berthelot, 35, 50, 115, 13^, 144,

150

Berthollet, 135, 218
Bertrand, 56
Berzelius, 70, 99

240

INDEX

Biltz, 70

Biological chemistry, 128-129

Bluntschlij 184

Bodenstein, 130

Bolley, 181

Boltwood, 163

Boltzmann, 120, 135

Bouis, 145

Boy/e, XI, XIV

Brandt, 23

Brauner, 70

Bredig, 74, 93

Brooke, Rupert, 217

firi/W, 12, 15

Buchka, 187

Buchner, 70, 217, 227

Buckle, 89

Bunsen, 23, 178, 179, 190, 191

192, 193, 219, 233
Burton, 210
Butler ow, 24, 223
flyron, 39, 83, 87, 98

Caffeine, 222, 229, 235, 236
Cahours, 150
Com, 18

Co/of, Ramon y, 151
Calcium carbide, 136, 148
Cambon, 106

CannizzarOi XI, XIV, 15, 24, 64
Carbohydrates. See sugars
Carborundum, 148
Caro, 9, 15
Catalyst, 226
Cathode rays, 160 '
Cayley, 31
Chancourtois, 29
Chandler, 16, 103, 104, 197
Chaudhuri, 58

Chemical constitution and physi-
cal properties, 12

Chemical Dynamics (book by
van't Hoff), 80, 90-92, 93

Chevreul, 35, 218

Chit tendon, 212

Chlorophyll, 235

Ciamician, 15, 130

Clarke*, 105

Classification period (in chem-
istry), XI

Clausius, n, 115, 116, 117

Cleve 112, 116, 117

Coal tar, 4, u, 13

Coal tar dyes, 3-8

Cohen, E., 93, 95, 102, 108, 120,
132

Cohn, G., 183

Cooke, 60, 61, 62, 65, 197
, Copernicus, 35

Copley medal, 31, 150

Cossa, fronitspiece

Coumarin, iz, 12

Courtois, 142

Crafts, 1 08

Crawford, 176

Crookes, 3, 49, 154, 160, 164,
217, 225

Cunningham, 176

Curie, Madame, XHI, XIV, 29,
147, 155-176

Curie, P., 135, 159, 168, 169-170,

*72
Cushman, 69

Dahlgren, 170

Dakin, 224, 233

Dalton, XI, Xm, XIV, 64, 100,

in, 165
Dana, 208
Darwin, 17, 29, 117
#<">#, 93, 143, 168
- Davy medal, 13, 26, 31, 50, 75,

93, 150
241

INDEX

Dawson, 130

Day, 105

Debienne, 163.

Debray, 144

Deherain, 138, 139, 140

Demuth, 191

Descartes, 35

Deventer, van, 93, 120, 130

Devitte, St.-Claire, 135, 141

-De F"0, 57

Dewar, 144

Diamond, artificial production
of, 136, 146-148

Disintegration theory (of ra-
dium), 164

Dissociation, theory of electro-
lytic, in, 113-119, 121-123,
130-131

Ditte, 150

Dixon, 72, 145

Dluska, 175

Dobbie, 44, 45, 56

Dobereiner, 25

Domidoff prize, 24

Doremus, 199

Dorp, van, 180

Duisberg, 15

Dumas, 25, 35, 135, 140, 233

Duppa, 12

Eb stein, 189

Edlung, 112, 118, 124

Ehrhardt, 15

Ehrlich, 129, 159, 217, 236

Electric furnace. See furnace,

electric
Electrolytic dissociation. See

dissociation, theory of
Electrons, 160, 163
Eliot, 108, 197
Energy of the future, 165
Engelbach, 219

Enzymes, 97, 225-228, 231
Erlenmeyer, 178, 193
Etard, 139
£uter, 130

Evaporation and dissociation
(Ramsay and Young), 46
Ewan, 93
Eykman, 93, 120

Fahlberg, 215

Fajans, 74

ttz/fc, 128

Faraday, 8, 12, 35, 76, 113

Faraday medal, 31, 50, 72, 130,
232

Fats, 218

Fehling, 180

Fenton, 223

Ferguson, 44

Ferments. See enzymes

Fischer, E., XIII, XIV, 13, 24,
70, 94, 98, 99, 128, 191, 193,
194, 217-239

Fischer, H., 224

Fischer, O., 185, 221, 222

Fittig, 42, 43, 204

Fitzgerald, 47

Fluorine, 136, 142-145

Folin, 71, 233

Food. See fats, carbohydrates,
proteins, amino acids, vita-
mine.

Foote, 147

Foster, 135

Foundation period (in chem-
istry), XI

Franklin, 197

Franklin medal, 75

Fremy, 138, 143, 144

Fried el, 150

Friedlander, 14

Fuchsine. See magenta

242

INDEX

Funk, 234

Furnace, electric, 136, 146, 147,

148, 150
Fyfe, 57

Gabriel, 70
Galileo, 33
Garett, 40
Gases of the atmosphere. See

inert gases of the atmosphere
Gattennann, 187, 191
Gautier, 14, 145, 149
Gay-Lussac, 117, 123, 135, 143
Gegenbauer, 150
Geikie, 150
Germanium, 28, 29
Gibbs, Willard, 97
Gibbs (Willard) medal, 75, 132,

214
Gibbs, Wolcot, 61, 72, 108, 197,

199
Gibbs (Wolcot) Laboratory, 72,

73

Gilder sleeve, 207
Gilman, 207, 209
Gladstone, 12
Glucosides, 228
Glycine. See glycocoll
Glycocoll, 12, 230
Goldenberg, 32
Goldschmidt, 93, 186
Gotyi, 151
Goodwin, 107

Graebe, 9, 70, 180, 183, 193, 220
Graham, 35, 42
Gray, 55
Green, 18
Grimaux, 150
Guanine, 222
Guldberg, 45, 130
Gunning, 57

Hole, 104

/fa//, C. M., 149

Hall, T., 2

Holler, 14

Hamburger, 130

Hantzsch, 186

Harcourt, 52

Harden, 194

/fare, 197

Harrow, 195, 239

Hasselberg, 54

Hastings, 17

Hehner, 56

Helium, 49, 50, 53, I44i 163,

166
Helmholtz, 98, 99, 122, 124, 125,

126, 178, 190, 233
Helmholtz medal, 98

Hempel, 65

Henderson, L. J., 69

Hermann, 87

Herter, 212

/ferfy, 210

/ferfc, 6

/feyse, 185

/fi//,6i, 108

Hillebrand, W. F., 16, 48, 105

/fifziff, 183

/f/e/f, frontispiece

tfq^, van'/, frontispiece, XII,
XIV, 37, 39, 45, 47, 70-109,
in, 114, 118, 119, 120, 121,
123, 131, 132, 158, 168, 188,
219,223,224

Hoff, van't, in America, 102-108

Hofmann, 3, 7, 178, 190, 225

Hofmann medal, 13, 151

Hopkins, 234

Hortsmann, 122

Hubner, 185

Huggins, 31

Huxley, 88, 117, 122, 127, 207

243

INDEX

Hydroxylamine, 221

Iinmuno-chemistry, 129

Indigo, 267

Indol, 222

Inert gases of the atmosphere,
48, 52, 144. See argon, hel-
ium, neon, xenon, krypton

Inorganic chemistry, XII

lonization. See dissociation,
theory of electrolytic

Jackson, 61, 108

Jacobs, 238

Jacob son, igi

Joffe, 1 80

John, 98

James, 137, 138

Jannasch, 65, 187, 191

Johnson, S. W., 197

Johnson, T. B., 233

Jones, Grinnel, 69

Jones, H. C., 98, 102, 104, 109,

122, 130, 132, 210
Jones, W., 233
Jorgsneen, frontispiece, 15
Joule, 100
Jungfleisch, 150

Kohlenberg, 122

Kappeler, 181, 184, 186

Kayser, 50

Kekule, XIV, 82, 84, 186, 193,

219
Kelvin, 14,42,50,124,126, 168,

174

Ketones, 221
Kirchhoff, 178, 190
Klaudy, 101
Klein, 185
Klingeman, 15
Knox, 143

Koch, 7
Kohler, 210
Kohlrausch, 118
Kolbe, 87, 88, 89, 93
Konig, 185
Kopp, 178, 182, 193
Kossel, 98, 128, 233
Kouindji, 34
Kropotkin, 33
Krypton, 52
Kundt, 93
Kutorga, 23

Lactic acid, 224

Ladenburg, frontispiece, 37, 70,

183

Lampe, 70

Landolt, frontispiece, 70, 98
Langevin, 169, 176
Lavoisier, XI, XIV, 35, 71, 92,

135

Lavoisier medal, 14
Law of mass action, 130
Lead. See radioactive lead
Lebeau, 153, 1 54
Le Bel, XIV, 80,85,86,93,150,

223

Le Blanc, 130
Le Chatelier, 130, 145, 149
Lecoq de Boisboudron, n
Lembert, 74
Lemoine, 145
Lenard, 150
Lenz, 23
Leuckardt, 187
Levene, 233, 238 '»
Lewis, 69
Liebermann, 9, 15, 70, 180, 183,

190, 193, 195, 220
Liebig, XII, 123, 203, 219, 221
Life, origin, of, 125-128
Lippmann, 158, 159

244

INDEX

Lisset, 17

Lister, 150

Lockyer, 49, 50

Lodge, 121, 174

Loeb, J., 102, 103, 119, 127, 128

Loeb, M., 72

Long, 212

Longs faff medal, 52

Lorentz, 231

Louyet, 143

Lowry, 65

Ludwig, 180

Lugan, 141

Lunge, 15

224

117

McCollum, 234

McKee, 210

Maeterlinck, 170

Mahlmann, 187

Magenta, 7, 221

Mallet, 197

Maltby, 103

Mai thus, 117

Morass e, 180

Marconi, 6

Matter, structure of, 165

Mauve, XIV, 4, 1 1

Meldola, 13, 14, 16, 17

Mendel, 234

Mendeleeff, frontispiece, XII,

XIV, 19-40, 5i» i"i 135
Meyer, L., 29
Meyer, R., 195
Meyer, K., XH, XIV, 44, 65,

145* i77-i95» 220, 221, 224
Meyer and Jacobson's " Lehr-

buch" (book), 188
Meyer hoffer, 93, 96, 97
Michael, 108
Michler, 183

Millikan, 65

Milner, 205

Mitscherlich, 35

Moissan, #., XH, XIH, XIV,

131* 135-154

Moissan, L., 142, 152, 153
Molwo, 17
Mommsen, 231
Morgan, 122
Morner, 45
Morris, 78

Morse, 104, 208, 210
Moseley, XII, XTV, 64, 65, 217
Munsterberg, 108

Ate/, 102, 105, 107

Neon, 52

Nernst, 16, 70, 234

Newlands, 25, 26, 116

Newton, 35

McAo/s, 16

Nieme, 15

Niton, 55, 166

Nitrobenzene, 6

Nitro compounds in the ali-
phatic series, 181, 183

Afofce/ prize, 53, 75, 77, 97, 131,
151, 169, 170, 231, 232, 234

Norris, 210

Noyes, A. A., 95, 122

Noyes, W. A., 210

Nucleoproteins, 229

Oil fields in Baku, 30

Organic chemistry, XII, 217, 218

Ormdorff, 210

Osazone test for sugars, 220

Osborne, 234, 238

Osmotic pressure, 92

Ostrogradsky, 23

Ostwald, XH, 41, 47, 58, 67, 92,

Il6, 117, Il8, 120, 121, 122,

130, 131. 132, I45» I53i 234

245

INDEX

Oudeman, 82

Panspennia, 124

Pasteur, 79, 159, 194, 226, 227

Pavloff, 19, 54

Pellew, 103, 104

Periodic law. See periodic sys-
tem

Periodic system, XII, 19, 25-29,
30, 31, 40, 64

Perkin, A. G., 17

Perkin, G. F., 2

Perkin, W. H., XH, XIV, 1-18,
36, 135, 220, 221, 225, 230, 233

Perkin medal, 16

Perkin (jun)., W. H., 17

Perkin's synthesis, n

Perrin, 169

Petroleum, origin of, 148

Pe tier son, 54

Pettijohn, 103

Pfeffer, 92

Phase rule, 97

Phenylhydrazine, 220, 221, 224

Physical chemistry, 47

Physico-chemical period (in
chemistry), XH

Physiological chemistry. See
biological chemistry

Pickering, 108

Pinner, 70

Pirogoff, 23

Pitchblende, 161

Planck, 70, 94

Pletnoff, 22

Plimmer, 233

Plique, 138

Poincare, 159, 170

Polonium, 162, 174

Polstorff, 187

Polypeptids, 231

Pomeroy, 13

Priestley, 197

Principles of Chemistry (book

by Mendeleeff), 29
Proteins, 218, 229, 230, 231, 233
Punch, 8
Purin, 229

Quincke, 191

Radiation pressure, 124
Radioactive lead, 74, 75
Radio-activity, XIII, 53, ^55.

See radium
Radium, 53, 123, 160-169. See

radio-activity

Radium emanation. See niton
Raleigh, XIV, 31, 48, 50, 54, 76,

117
Ramsay, frontispiece, XII, XIV,

16, 29, 36, 41-58, 74> 98, 122,

131, 144, 151, 153, 154, 158,
, 163, 168, 174, 204, 205, 217,
f 224, 232
Raoult, 92, 100, 112, 117, 119,

123
Rare gases of the atmosphere.

See inert gases of the atmos-
phere
Reed, 210
Regnault, 23
Reicher, 93, 120
Remsen, XIII, XIV, 16, 55, 105,

114, 197-215
Reusch, 43

Reymond du Bois, 179
Richards, H. M., 59
Richards, T. W., XII, XIV, 29,

59-78, 95, 102, 107, 108, 122
Richards, W. T., 59
Riess, 152
Rilliet, 181
Rockefeller, 106, 107

246

INDEX

Rockefeller Institute, 234

Romburgh, 14

Rontgen, 97, 150, 160

Roosevelt, 108, 211

Rosaniline, 7

Roscoe, 233

Rose, 35 219

Roses, oil of. See scents, syn-
thetic

Ross, 231

Roux, 126

Rowland, 207

Royal College of Science, 2

Royal medal, u, 31, 150

Rumford medal, 150

Rupe, 14

Ruprecht, 23

Rutherford, 75, 163, 164, 166,
176

Sabatier, 149

Saccharin, 208

Sandmeyer, 186

Sawitsch, 23

Scents, synthetic, 236, 237

Schafer, 127

Scnar, 181

Scheele, 142, 143

Scnzff, 15

Schmidt, 120

Sc hot ten, 14

Schukenberger, 57

Schulze, 181

Schurman, 105

Schutzenberger, 150

Shields, 45

Side-chain theory, 129

Siredey, 139

Sklodowski, 156, 175

S/yfce, Z>. D. van, 128, 233, 238

Smith, A., 106, 107, 109, 132, 176

Smifn, £. F., 197

Smith, T., 122

Smifn, W., 193

Smithells, 47

Soddy, 53, 58, 74, 75, 95, 163,

164, 176
Sokoloff, 19
Solution, van'/ /fo^s theory of,

92,98
Solutions (book by Mende-

leeff), 22

Sonnenschein, 177
Specific volumes, 23
Spottiswoode, 31
•S^rma, 93
Starling, 236
Sfas, 64, 70
Stassfurt deposits, van'* Hojf's

work on, 96, 97
Stereo-chemistry, 79, 80, 85-88,

89, 93, 188
Stieglitz, 106, 132
Stock, 153, 154
Stockton, 60
Strecker, 204
Sugars, 218, 220, 221, 222-224,

225, 228
Surface tension and molecular

weight (Ramsay and Shields),

47
Sylvester, 207

Takayama, 15
Tammann, 130
Tannin, 237
Tartaric acid, 12
Taylor, 130, 212
TTiee/, 232
Thenard, 143
Theobromine, 222, 229
Thiophene, 184, 187
Thomson, 116, 151, 160, 165
Thorium, 161

247

INDEX

Thorpe, frontispiece, 40, 191,

194, 195
Tiemann, 98
Tilden, 40, 58, 130, 214
Toll ens, 190

Toxin and anti-toxin, 129
Transmutation of elements, 53,

166

Traube, 92
Trovers, 52

Triphenylmethane, 222
Troost, 150
Trowbridge, 108
Tyrian purple. See mauve

Uranium, 160

Urea, XIV

Uric acid, 222, 229, 236

Valson, 117

van't Hoff. See Hoff, van't

Vapor Density (Victor Meyer's

method,) 183
V enable, 40
Verguin, 7
Veronal, 235
Vesque, 139, 140
Vitamine, 234
Volhard, 203
Vries, Hugo de, 131, 153

Waage, 130
Walden, 40

Wallace, 29
Wallach, 84, 186, 191
Walter, 139
Warburg, 70
Ward, 135
Watts, 103, 194
Wegscheider, 130

, #. Gideon, 238

, W., 103
z, 162
Wiley, 16,212
Will, 14, 98
Williamson, 117
Willstatter, 220, 235
WinJder, frontispiece, 28
Ms//cem/s, 79, 86, 87, 89, 181
Witt, 70, 98
Witte, 32
Wohler, XH, XIV, 185, 203, 204,

205, 219
Woskrensky, 23
burster, 181, 182
Wurtz, 57, 85, 233

X-rays, 160, 164
Xanthine, 222
Xenon, 52

Young, 45

Zeeman, 231
Zincke, 219

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