xii OBITUARY NOTICES OF MEMBERS DECEASED. 



Although suliering from shortness of breath, the same personal 

 charm which characterized him in heaUh was still there. He was 

 one of the most simple, modest, honest, unostentatious and unselfish 

 of men. 



Van't Hoff enjoyed at least one blessing not given to all great 

 men. He lived to see his work understood, recognized and appre- 

 ciated. He was a member of most of the learned societies and acad- 

 emies in the world. He was elected a foreign member of the Amer- 

 ican Philosophical Society in 1904. He was elected a foreign mem- 

 ber of the Royal Society in 1897. He received honorary degrees 

 from a large number of the most distinguished universities, including 

 Cambridge, Manchester, Heidelberg and Chicago. The German em- 

 peror conferred upon him the order " Pour le Merite," and Van't Hoflf 

 received the first Nobel prize in chemistry in 1901. The University 

 of Berlin at their centenary celebration of 1910 bestowed upon him a 

 gold medal for his scientific researches (Die grosse golden Medal- 

 lia zur Wissenschaft). According to recent advices the city of Rot- 

 terdam will create a \^an't Hoff prize, to be awarded, like the Nobel 

 Prize in Chemistry, for the best investigations in the field of chemistry. 



A leading Berlin journal thus refers to \'an't Hoff: " Ein ganz 

 Grosser ist dieser Tage gestorben, der Chemiker A an't Hoff." This 

 can scarcely be translated into English. We have no words strong 

 enough to convey in good English the exact meaning of " Ein ganz 

 (irosser." 



Prom the same journal I quote: "Van't Hoff' hat uns wie ein 

 neuer Kopernikus das Weltzystem Weiter begreiben gelehrt; Van't 

 Hoff, ein geborener Hollander, tatig an der erstcn deutschcn Uni- 

 versitat, gehorte mit seincm Wissen der ganzen Welt." 



The accompanying photograph, which was recently sent me by 

 Mrs. Van't Hoff, represents the great man as he appeared shortly 

 before his death. 



Thus lived and worked and died not only one of the very greatest 

 men of science of his day, but of all time ; a man whose name the 

 history of science will reverence as it does that of Maxwell, Pasteur 

 and Helmholtz. 



Harry C. Jones. 



Johns Hopkins University, 

 April 20, 1911. 



