554 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



In accepting the office of President of the Ninth International Con- 

 gress of Applied Chemistry, Professor Walden made the following re- 

 marks : 



The choice which has just fallen upon me is a distinction of an altogether 

 exceptional kind, and also a task of an exceptional kind. On behalf of Professor 

 Konovaloff, who is absent, and who will assuredly regret his inability to take 

 part in our common celebration, I can only express to you his thanks and his 

 undoubted acceptance. In my own case, however, I realize mixed emotions. 

 I say to myself: "Much honor, much work; many disappointments, many gray 

 hairs! " In accepting this choice, we are fully aware that our powers will prove 

 insufficient to do full justice to the duties entailed, but we see therein an honor 

 rendered to our fatherland and to the great men, the great chemists of our 

 country. I need only recall to your minds a few names; that of Lemonossoff, 

 who one hundred and sixty years ago laid the foundation Qf modern chemistry; 

 that of Grotthus, a Eussian chemist of a century ago; that of Hessen, also a 

 chemist, and finally I name to you our great fellow-countryman, recently 

 deceased, Mendeleef, the creator of the periodic system of the elements. I 

 assume that the honor you have just accorded to our fatherland is also addressed 

 to these great men. We are the inheritors of the deeds these men accomplished. 

 It is not the mind alone that rules congresses, the heart also must have its say. 

 Of the scope of my mind, I am, naturally, not qualified to speak, but in what 

 concerns my heart, in what concerns my ardent wish to do my best, to give you 

 the best possible reception, as to this I believe I can safely speak, as to this 

 I shall willingly and gladly compete with the gentlemen who have received us 

 in former congresses, and if three years hence, in transmitting my office into 

 other hands, I may perhaps be able to speak in my turn with the sunny humor 

 of our president of to-day, then I shall be content. I thank you. 



As the leader, director and presiding officer of the Ninth Congress 

 of Applied Chemistry, Professor Walden possesses many notable quali- 

 ties which must aid in rendering that congress a success. With its 

 complex composition, made up as it is of as many, or perhaps more 

 countries than there are known chemical elements, we might say that 

 no one was better qualified than Professor Walden, with his intimate 

 knowledge of the art of combining and ordering the various chemical 

 elements, and we have no doubt that he will be equally successful with 

 the various and eminently individual human equations in the congress, 

 and that they will be so welded as to constitute a thoroughly homo- 

 geneous assembly, which will be brought to a close in a manner satis- 

 factory to all, after the members shall have given free and full expres- 

 sion to their views. 



The eighth congress had to decide whether four or but three official 

 languages should be recognized, and the action finally taken favored 

 the recognition of four — English, Prench, German and Italian. At the 

 ninth congress many interesting matters will have to be discussed and 

 determined ; one of the most important contemplates the securing of an 

 agreement among scientists to accept a standard determination of 

 atomic weights by successive congresses, the weights recognized as au- 



