THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 



287 



1'IiOFESSOR Adoi.f von* Baeyer. 



a large group of men active in re- 

 search, especially from Kekule. and be- 

 gan the investigations in organic chem- 

 istry which have made him eminent. 

 It seems desirable to rail attention to 

 the meat advantages that Baeyer had, 

 which arc paralleled in the lives of 

 many other eminent men. because we 

 need at the present time to learn how- 

 far scientific achievement is due to 

 inborn genius and how far to favor- 

 able circumstances. It is quite pos- 

 sible that the dearth of distinguished 

 men in the United States is less due to 

 lack of natural ability than to the 



fact that fifty years ago the environ- 

 ment here was but rarely so favorable 

 as in Germany, France or Great 

 Britain. 



Baeyer's fortunate career has con- 

 tinued to the present time. He fol- 

 lowed Kekule to Geneva but soon quali- 

 fied as a docent in Berlin with a re- 

 search on uric acid. His promotion 

 at Berlin was slow, but he developed 

 an important laboratory in connection 

 with the Gewerheakademie, where he 

 had as students and assistants Lieber- 

 mann, Graebe and Victor Meyer, and 

 continued his work on the synthesis of 



