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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



organic compounds. He was called to 

 the chair of chemistry in the newly- 

 organized university of Strassburg in 

 1872, where he had as students Emil 

 and Otto Fischer, and three years later 

 went to Munich as Liebig's successor. 

 Liebig, who established the first chem- 

 ical laboratory, had gone to Munich on 

 the condition that he should do no 

 laboratory teaching, and it remained 

 for Baeyer to build up a university 

 laboratory. Here he with his pupils 

 and assistants has since continued to 

 carry forward important researches in 

 organic chemistry. His most impor- 

 tant work, however, was the artificial 

 production of indigo, accomplished in 

 1870, and made commercially possible 

 in 1880. This has given Germany a 

 new and important industry. It is a 

 fine example of the interdependence of 

 pure and applied science. 



SCIENTIFIC ITEMS 

 The German emperor has conferred 

 on Professor Simon Newcomb, the emi- 

 nent astronomer, the order ' pour le 

 merite ' in science and the arts. — At a 

 meeting of the Royal Astronomical So- 

 ciety, on February 9, Ambassador Reid 

 received the gold medal for 1905, con- 

 ferred by the society on Professor Wil- 

 liam Wallace Campbell, director of the 

 Lick Observatory. 



It is planned to present to the city 

 of Philadelphia a statue of Dr. Joseph 

 Leidy, to be erected in the City Hall 

 Plaza. Dr. Leidy, who was born in 

 that city in 1823 and died there in 

 1891, added much to its scientific emi- 

 nence, and as president of the Academy 

 of Natural Sciences, professor of human 

 and comparative anatomy and zoology 

 in the University of Pennsylvania, and 

 president of the Wagner Free Institute 

 of Science, accomplished much for these 

 institutions. 



The U. S. government has commis- 

 sioned President David Starr Jordan, 

 of Stanford University, and Professor 

 Charles H. Gilbert, head of the depart- 

 ment of zoology, to conduct an investi- 

 gation of the fish and fisheries of Japan 

 and the Island of Sakhalin during the 

 coming summer. — Dr. Otto Nordens- 

 kjold and Capt. Mikkelsen were the 

 guests of honor at a dinner given by 

 the Arctic and Explorer's Clubs in New 

 York City, on February 7. It was an- 

 nounced that Dr. Nordenskjold would 

 sail on the 8th inst. for his home in 

 Sweden, to arrange for another voyage 

 in search of the south pole. Capt. Mik- 

 kelsen is getting ready an expedition to 

 the Beaufort Sea, an unexplored Arctic 

 area west of the Parry archipelago. 



