KLUYVER AS PROFESSOR; CHRONICLES OF THE LABORATORY 



day, lecture from 1 1 till 12, off by car to Minneapolis at noon, arrival 

 at 7 p.m.; that evening reception by the members of the Bacteriology 

 Department; Saturday a.m., visits to laboratories (Gortner's, among 

 others), at noon off by car to Hackensack at Birch Lake, in Northern 

 Minnesota - land of the 1,000 lakes, each one of the dimensions of our 

 Loosdrecht lakes - to the cabin of Dean Buchanan; Sunday and Mon- 

 day spent with the Dean on his lake, fishing (!), canoeing (!), alter- 

 nating with cooking and dish-washing; Monday evening, 7 p.m., by 

 car to Minneapolis, stopped for an hour and a half with Kolthoff, con- 

 tinued on to Ames, arrival Tuesday at 6 p.m.; at 7.30 my seminar; 

 next morning lecture at 1 1 . All in all, a rather formidable itinerary. 

 Travelled 1600 miles, or 2500 km, in an automobile in a single week!' 



In his own country Kluyver's counsel in scientific matters was sought 

 with increasing frequency. First love made him accept with alacrity an 

 advisory function with the Governmental Fibre Institute. The tie 

 lasted for many years, and was not severed when this institute became 

 part of the 'Central Organization for Applied Natural Scientific Re- 

 search' (T.N.O.) in the Netherlands. This is not surprising, for Kluy- 

 ver had long ago recognized the importance of the sort of investiga- 

 tions that were carried out there. And soon after T.N.O. had been 

 established, Kluyver became a member of the board of trustees of the 

 Central Organization; from 1932 on he served uninterruptedly in 

 this function, and was a member of many of its committees. 



On January 1, 1935, began a collaboration that was to require 

 much of Kluyver's attention. The Rockefeller Foundation had made 

 a grant to Dr. L. S. Ornstein, Professor of Physics at the University 

 of Utrecht, for the establishment of a group that would be concerned 

 with investigations of problems in the area of biophysics. Ornstein 

 associated himself with Kluyver, and under their combined guidance 

 the Biophysical Group Utrccht-Dclft came into being. From the mem- 

 ories of E. C. Wassink*, for many years an associate of this group, the 

 following picture of Kluyver's activity in it emerges: 



* The following account is a slightly adapted version of an article of Dr. Wassink. 

 kindly submitted by him to the Editorial Committee. The work of the Biophysical 

 Group Utrecht-Delft has been reviewed by Wassink in : Advances in Enzymol. //. 119. 

 1 951; and by Spruit and Spruit-van der Burg in: The luminescence of biological 

 systems, edited by F.H.Johnson. Washington, 1955. p. 99. 



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