The Academy regrets to announce the death of 

 Professor Josiah Willard Gibbs. 



Professor Gibbs was born in New Haven, Conn., Febru- 

 ary 11, 1839,' and died April 28, 1003. 



At the regular meeting of the Academy held May 13, 

 the following minute on the death of Professor Gibbs was 

 unanimously adopted : 



The Academy has learned with the deepest regret and sor- 

 row of the death of its most distinguished member, Professor 

 Josiah Willard Gibbs, and desires to place on record its deep 

 sense of the loss sustained by the whole scientific world, and 

 in an especial degree by the members of this body. 



The first published investigations of Professor Gibbs ap- 

 peared in the Transactions of this Academy in 1873, under 

 the titles of "Graphical Methods in the Thermodynamics of 

 Fluids," and "A Method of Geometrical Representation of 

 the Thermodynamic Properties of Substances by means of 

 Surfaces," and these were followed, in 1875 and 1878, by his 

 celebrated papers on "The Equilibrium of Heterogeneous 

 Substances." The great importance of this work is shown 

 by the fact that the author anticipated, by purely theoretical 

 considerations, a large number of the discoveries in Physical 

 Chemistry which have since been made, and that he intro- 

 duced, into this field, the most powerful method of theoreti- 

 cal investigation now known : — a method, moreover, which, 

 being independent of special hypotheses, seems destined to 

 hold a permanent place among those gi'eat scientific methods 

 which the lapse of time does not render obsolete. The 

 Academy in emphasizing, in this memorial, the researches of 

 Professor Gibbs published in its Transactions, is not unmind- 

 ful of his distinguished achievements in other scientific lines, 

 but it leaves to others the special mention of such work, 

 proud of the fact that it recognized so early the value of his 

 researches in Thermodynamics, and was instrumental in giv- 

 ing that work to the scientific world. 



