6 HARMON NORTHROP MORSE— REMSEN [Uemo,rs i$ES 



It is interesting and instructive to reflect that this field is only one of the numerous fields 

 in the domain of the doctrine of atomism. This doctrine was foreshadowed about 2,000 years 

 ago by the philosophers Leucippus and Democritus and by the poet Lucretius. It has grown 

 astonishingly along with the developments of modern physical science, especially since the 

 advent of the atomic theory of Dalton and the advent of the electrochemical theories of Davy 

 and Faraday. It has now reached the very advanced stage of a complete overthrow of the 

 doctrine of continuous media, a doctrine much alive also 20 centuries ago, and finding its modern 

 Anaxagoras, in this university, in no less a personage than Lord Kelvin, who, as some of you 

 will remember, maintained the continuity of that something we call the ether in his famous 

 "Baltimore lectures" of the year 1884. The structure of matter now seems to have been 

 proved to be plinthoid, and attention is at present concentrated on the individual bricks, the 

 numbers of them per unit volume, and the arrangement of the corpuscles, or subbricks, in them. 

 The contribution of Morse was immediately recognized as a part and parcel of the grand aggre- 

 gate of evidence in favor of the doctrine of atomism; and it was not a matter of surprise to 

 those acquainted with the subject that the Turin Academy of Sciences awarded him the Avogadro 

 prize on the occasion of the celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the promulgation of 

 what has since been known as Avogadro's hypothesis, namely, that equal volumes of different 

 gases, subject to the same pressures and temperatures, contain the same numbers of molecules. 



The dignified directness, simplicity, and sincerity of Professor Morse were agreeably 

 manifested in the correspondence had with him in reference to his work and its support. He 

 had always a just sense of realities. His enthusiasm and his optimism were always tempered 

 by a recognition of existing conditions and limitations. Although not a professional mathema- 

 tician, he understood well the meaning and the rigor of the much-neglected rules of arithmetic. 

 His characteristics as a man among men are clearly indicated by himself in the following self- 

 explanatory letter, written in his own plain hand, as were most of his communications — it is 

 dated February 29, 1916: 



I have just received from the Accademia delle Scienze di Torino the announcement that the medal provided 

 for at the centennial celebration of the promulgation of Avogadro's Hypothesis, for the best work in molecular 

 physics which should appear in the three following years, i. e., during 1912, 1913, and 1914, has been awarded 

 to my report to the Carnegie Institution on investigations in osmotic pressure. 



I hasten to inform you, because I am glad to have justified the confidence you have shown in the work 

 and the liberal support you have given it, without which it would have been impossible for me to have succeeded. 



But it should be understood that Morse was not working for medals, or for prizes, or for 

 the approval of learned societies. That the first chapter of his enterprise was completed in 

 time for consideration by the Turin Academy was only a happy coincidence. His zeal and 

 industry were founded in the more enduring sentiments derived from contemplative studies 

 of the properties of matter. He sought to add, and did add, to that sort of knowledge which 

 is verifiable and hence permanently useful to our race. His position in science is therefore 

 secure, for it is written in with the history of the demonstrated constancy of the material 

 phenomena he helped to penetrate, and these phenomena are more enduring than the works 

 of men. 



III. PROFESSOR FRAZERS ADDRESS 



My remarks this afternoon are dictated by the intimate association I enjoyed with 

 Professor Morse, extending over a long period of years and covering the time of his greatest 

 scientific productivity. I came to know him as teacher, patient and painstaking, as friend, 

 staunch and self -forgetful, and, lastly, as investigator, resolute and resourceful. 



In these circumstances I may be permitted to speak more particularly of the work which 

 has placed the name of Morse so high among the scientists of his time, the work with which his 

 name will always be associated. 



Although Professor Morse was primarily an investigator, he devoted long years of his 

 life to routine instruction. His extensive knowledge of the facts of chemistry and his habit of 

 careful individual instruction made the work in his laboratory extremely valuable. The 



