OLIVER WOLCOTT GIBBS. xxv 



more time for private research, but fewer facilities for it. Fortu- 

 nately he had means enabling him to establish a small private 

 laboratory, and to employ an assistant. It was in this laboratory, 

 first at Cambridge and afterwards at Newport, that he carried out 

 that one of all his researches which was the most important and 

 elaborate and extensive. 



The equipment of this laboratory was modest and very suitable 

 for the work done in it. An ordinary kitchen stove served con- 

 veniently for the drying of precipitates in its oven, and the ignition 

 of crucibles buried in the burning coal, and the heating or evapora- 

 tion of liquids on its top. These processes were going on for much 

 of the time during many years. There are kinds of work for which 

 refined and elaborate apparatus barely accomplishes what is need- 

 ful ; if Gibbs had been occupied with work of this character, he 

 would have provided it. There are not many things remaining 

 which can be done with the iron spoon and gun-barrel which so 

 well served Priestley ; it happened that Gibbs, in his great work on 

 the complex inorganic acids, was busy in a region very different 

 from the determination of residuals which demands the utmost in- 

 strumental refinement, and his keen good sense suited the equipment 

 to its purpose. 



After the closing of the chemical laboratory of the Lawrence 

 Scientific School, Dr. Gibbs lectured to small classes on the spectro- 

 scope and on thermodynamics till 1887, when he retired as professor 

 emeritus. After this, he lived at Newport, where he had before 

 spent summer vacations. His private laboratory was reestablished 

 here, and he continued his researches a long as health and strength 

 sufficed. Some of his hours of recreation were spent in his flower 

 garden, and his roses were much admired. He passed away on the 

 ninth of December, 1908, at the age of eighty-six years nine and 

 a half months. His wife, whose name was Josephine Mauran, 

 died several years earlier, leaving no children. 



It remains to speak briefly of Gibbs's scientific work. Fitly to 

 describe it, even to an audience of chemists, would take more time 

 than our traditions in the American Philosophical Society allow, 

 so it is the esteem in which the work is held rather than the details 

 of the work which will occupy us. 



