96 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



THE PEOGEESS OE SCIENCE 



WOLCOTT GIBBS 

 Oliver Wolcott Gibbs, one of the 

 few great men of science given to the 

 world by the United States during the 

 first part of the nineteenth century, 

 died at his home in Newport on De- 

 cember 9. He was born in New York 

 City on February 21, 1822, his father. 

 Colonel George Gibbs, being one of 

 the earliest American mineralogists, 

 and his mother, Laura Wolcott, the 

 daughter of Oliver Wolcott, secretary 

 of the treasury under Washington and 

 Adams, being an artist of ability. 

 Gibbs graduated from Columbia Col- 

 lege in 1841, and received the degree 

 of doctor of medicine from the College 

 of Physicians and Surgeons in 1845. 

 In the meanwhile he had been assistant 

 to Dr. Robert Hare, professor of chem- 

 istry in the medical school of the Uni- 

 versity of Pennsylvania. The next 

 three years were spent abroad; and 

 work was carried on in the laboratories 

 of Rammelsberg and Rose in Berlin, 

 Liebig in Giessen and Regnault in 

 Paris. In 1849 he became professor of 

 chemistry and physics in the Free 

 Academy, later the College of the City 

 of New York, and in 1863 he was 

 elected Rumford professor in Harvard 

 University. In 1887 he became pro- 

 fessor emeritus and retired to his home 

 at Newport, where he equipped a labo- 

 ratory for his chemical researches. 



The researches that he accomplished 

 give distinction to this country. His 

 work on the electrolytic deposition of 

 copper as a means of quantitative an- 

 alysis has become of great significance, 

 and many other methods of quantita- 

 tive analysis were improved under his 

 guidance. Other works of great impor- 

 tance were his extended experimental 

 studies of complex salts, especially the 

 cobaltamine compounds and those con- 



taining some of the rarer elements. 

 These are of great theoretical interest, 

 owing to their relation to theories of 

 molecular structure. 



Gibbs was the last surviving founder 

 of the National Academy of Sciences, 

 which he served as president; he had 

 been general secretary, vice-president 

 and president of the American Associa- 

 tion for the Advancement of Science. 

 He was a member of the Prussian 

 Academy of Sciences and the only Am- 

 erican honorary member of the German 

 Chemical Society. His work was recog- 

 nized by many other societies, and by 

 honorary degrees conferred by Colum- 

 bia, Harvard, Pennsylvania, George 

 Washington and Toronto Universities. 

 A portrait of Gibbs was published in 

 The Populab Science Monthly for 

 June, 1900. There is here reproduced 

 a letter addressed to the editor in 

 answer to a request for an article. 

 This letter illustrates the courtesy and 

 kindness not less characteristic of 

 Wolcott Gibbs than the eminence of 

 his services to science. 



OTIS T. MASON 

 Otis Tufton IVIason, head curator 

 of the department of anthropology in 

 the United States National Museum, 

 died at Washington on November 5, 

 in his seventy-first year. He was the 

 son of John and Rachel Thompson 

 (Lincoln) Mason, and was born at 

 Eastport, Maine, April 10, 1838. He 

 was graduated from Columbian (now 

 George Washington) University as 

 A.B. in 1861 (A.M., 1862; Ph.D., 1879; 

 LL.D., 1898). In the following year 

 he married Sarah E. Henderson, and 

 at once entered on his career as a 

 teacher. As principal of the prepara- 

 tory department of Columbian College, 

 from 1861 to 1884, he used his oppor- 



