SAMUEL CABOT. 549 



the details must in many cases be reinvented, or, when not carefully 

 guarded secrets, they usually need extensive modifications to fit them 

 to American conditions, which differ in many and unexpected ways 

 from those abroad. It would be a mistake, however, to suppose from 

 this early success that he was a precocious genius, who leaped to results 

 by some intuitive process ; on the contrary, his mind moved rather 

 slowly, and his early successes were obtained by patient, well-directed, 

 persistent labor. 



In 1.S73 he went to Europe to complete his chemical education, and 

 studied for the first half year with Emil Kopp, in the Zurich Polytech- 

 nicum, where he gave part of his time to the analysis of aniline black, 

 a dyestuff then recently introduced. The second half of the year was 

 devoted to travel, and especially to visits to laboratories and chemical 

 works. At this time he was only twenty-four years old, but it was 

 striking to see the most eminent chemists receiving him as a fellow- 

 chemist, and discussing scientific matters with him as with a contem- 

 porary. The acquaintanceships made at this time, and the practical 

 knowledge acquired, were of life-long value to him. 



In 1874, after his return to America with greater attainments and 

 enlarged horizons, he attempted to establish at the Lowell Bleachery 

 the Solvay process for making sodic carbonate, then only eleven years 

 old, but without success. This is an excellent example of the difficul- 

 ties in introducing foreign manufacturing processes. There was no 

 lack of judgment in the selection of the process, as is shown by the 

 enormous development of it at Syracuse, where it was started under 

 the auspices of the mother company in Belgium ten years later ; the 

 details also seemed to be sufficiently well known, but the working out 

 of these details so as to secure success needed not only the highest 

 ability of the technical chemist, but also mechanical engineering of a 

 most difficult and unusual sort, which at that time was beyond him. 

 His failure, therefore, was not surprising or mortifying, and he had the 

 happy faculty of learning from his failures, and, like Peter the Great, 

 making them the school for later victories. After this he spent a 

 short time in the office of his uncle, Henry Lee, learning business 

 methods. 



His only chemical papers date from this period, 1872-1877. They 

 are seven in number and of good quality for a beginner, but he evi- 

 dently soon realized that the publication of original researches was not 

 his line of work, since he could be employed much more usefully for 

 the community and himself in perfecting chemical manufactures. With 

 this end in view he became the most expert consulting chemist for in- 

 dustrial work in this part of the country, and continued to give advice 



