CHARLES ROBERT SANGER. 813 



was his selection, by the French ministry of pnl)lic instruction, as 

 exchange professor at the Sorhonne for the year 1912-13. The official 

 letter announcing this selection arrived in this country within a very 

 few (hxys after Professor Rotch's death. 



He was a pioneer in a new science; an investigator, whose name is 

 known wherever meteorological work is done; a loyal teacher who 

 served without salary; a generous benefactor, who left to the uni- 

 versity an enduring monument of his enthusiasm and untiring devo- 

 tion to the science which he himself <lid so much to advance. His 

 life aiul hibor have been an inspiration to his scientific colleagues 

 everywhere, but especially to those who were most closely associated 

 with him in the work of his observatory, and in the department of the 

 university of whose staff he was a valued member. 



Robert De C. Ward. 



CHARLES ROBERT SANGER 



The most important achievement of Charles Robert Sanger grew 

 out of an incident, which occurs in the life of almost every young 

 chemist. While he was Assistant in Chemistry at Harvard College, 

 Professor H. B. Hill was consulted by a literary colleague in regard 

 to a number of cases of obscure poisoning in his family. At first he 

 suggested that they might be due to carbonic oxide from the furnace 

 and referred the question for investigation to Sanger, who found 

 however that the air of the house was free from carbonic oxide, and 

 therefore turned his attention to the other surroundings of the family, 

 when it appeared the wall papers were heavily charged with arsenic, 

 and, after these had been removed, the unpleasjint symptoms gradu- 

 ally disappeared. In this way Sanger's attention was called to the 

 relation of arsenic to common life, but instead of contenting himself 

 with the study of this particular case, as most men would have done, 

 he took up the general subject, made this field of research especially 

 his own, anfl profluccd in it his most important additions to the science. 



In attacking the sul)ject he determined, with characteristic love 

 of truth, to place it on a secure experimental foundation l\y looking 

 for arsenic in the excreta of people suffering from the disorders com- 

 monly attributed to poison from wall papers. Before doing this how- 



