JACOBUS HENRICUS VAN'T HOFF. 



(Read April 22, 1911.) 



It is always pleasant to discuss the work of a truly great man, 

 but the loss of an adored teacher and one of the best of friends, is 

 among the most trying ordeals through which we are called upon 

 to pass. 



I shall say relatively little of the life of Van't Hofif, since it was 

 simple and comparatively uneventful ; but devote most of my time to 

 his work — work which found chemistry, for the most part, an em- 

 pirical science, and left it well advanced towards becoming an exact 

 branch of natural science. 



Jacobus Henricus Van't Hofif was born in Rotterdam, August 30, 

 1852, the son of a physician. He died in Berlin, March i, 191 1, and 

 was, therefore, almost exactly fifty-eight and a half years old. He 

 received his early training in the " Realschule " in Rotterdam, and 

 in 1869, at the age of seventeen, went to the Polytechnikum in Delft, 

 completing the three years' course there in two years. At the age 

 of nineteen he went to the University of Leyden and remained there 

 one year. He then repaired to Bonn to work with the distinguished 

 organic chemist, Kekule, and thence to Paris to come under the 

 influence of Wiirtz. He then returned to Holland and in 1874, at 

 the age of twenty-two, made the Doctor's degree at Utrecht, his dis- 

 sertation being in the field of organic chemistry. 



Van't Hofif, in 1876, at the age of twenty-four, was appointed pri- 

 vatdozent in physics in the veterinary college in Utrecht. He was 

 called to Amsterdam in 1877 as lecturer in chemistry, and in the 

 following year was appointed professor of chemistry. Van't Hofif 

 held the position of professor of chemistry in the University of Am- 

 sterdam until 1896, when he accepted a call to Berlin as professor 

 in the University and a member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. 

 He lectured once a week on physical chemistry in the University of 

 Berlin, and a research laboratory was provided for him in the suburbs 



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