EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



V()i>. XVIir. AiToiiST, 1907. No. 12. 



Dr. Charles A. Goessmnmi, of Massaclnisetls, who retired from 

 active service witli the close of the college year, has long l)een one of 

 the niost conspicuous figures in agricultural chemistry in this country. 

 For nearly forty years he has been an active member of the faculty 

 of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, his service covering almost 

 the entire period since the college was established. One of the earliest 

 j)i()neers in agricultural investigation, his work has been not only a 

 contribution to knowledge, but an inspiration to others and a potent 

 influence for the development of agricultural experimentation. It 

 has exhibited unusual versatility and breadth of knowledge, and has 

 been characterized by a thoroughness and conservatism which have 

 given great reliability to his conclusions. The celebration of his 

 eightieth birthday just before commencement and his retirement 

 as emeritus professor and under a jDension from the Carnegie Institu- 

 tion close an active career full of honor to himself and of service to 

 his fellow-men. 



Doctor Goessmann was educated at the University of Gottingen, 

 Germany, receiving his doctorate in 1853. AVhile there he became the 

 favorite student and later the assistant of the eminent chemist Wcihler, 

 from whom he received his inspiration to follow chemistry rather 

 than pharmacy, which had been his original choice. His investiga- 

 tions in the Gottingen laboratory were of a fundamental character 

 and covered a wide range of organic compounds. The results were 

 embodied in something over twenty papers published in Annalcn der 

 Chcviie und Pharmacie. Many of these related to the constituents 

 of plant and aninud products, such as })eaniit oil, in Avhich he dis- 

 covered two new fatty acids, cocoa oil, strychnin, leucin (a product 

 of pancreatic digestion of proteids), hippuric acid, and others; and 

 as early as 1857 he reported upon ''a new sugar plant, Sorglnnn 

 saccharatuviy 



In that year he accepted from a former American fellow-student 

 tlie i)ositi()n of scientiiic director of an extensive sugar refinery in 

 Philadelphia. FoHowiug this he studied the sugar industi'v in Cul)a 

 and the West Indies and in Istll Itecame chemist of the Onondaga 



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