THEODORE WILLIAM RICHARDS BAXTER 743 



chemical aifinity and cohesion upon the configuration of an atom and 

 their relation to such properties of material as surface tension, vapor 

 pressure, and heat of evaporation. In recent years he was engaged 

 in the derivation of a mathematical expression for computing from 

 the compressibilities and other data the actual internal pressures 

 which hold matter together, and had obtained extremely interesting 

 and striking results. The importance of the facts and generaliza- 

 tions in this field brought forward by Richards is beyond question, 

 and while he had made little effort to correlate them with the most 

 recent ideas of the constitution of matter there seemed to be no con- 

 flict in the two points of view. 



Besides the foregoing topics many problems in chemical equi- 

 librium and in analytical chemistry are included among the subjects 

 considered in the nearlj^ 300 scientific papers published during his 

 40 years of activity as an investigator. 



While it is always difficult to evaluate the ultimate importance of 

 contemporaneous advances in any field, I believe that everyone will 

 agree that Richard's contributions to the technique of precise physico- 

 chemical investigation will always stand out prominently in the 

 history of this period of American chemistry. In time further ad- 

 vances will surely come, just as Stas and Richards himself were able 

 to make vast improvements on the existing situations. Doubtless 

 Richards could have carried the refinement of his work to a greater 

 extreme if the needs of the time had required it. Certainly up to the 

 present no one else has done so. 



To me one of the most striking features of his work is the uniform 

 care with which every aspect of an investigation was considered and 

 every contingency foreseen. It was never his way to close up the 

 bunghole and leave the spigot open. This was due in part to never 

 losing sight of the fact that measurements, no matter how accurate, 

 are of no permanent value unless the materials being measured are of 

 undoubted purity and definiteness, and the process free from defects, 

 but in part it was undoubtedly due to an excessively cautious tempera- 

 ment, which probably saved him from making false steps. To one 

 familiar with the experimental methods of his laboratory it is inter- 

 esting to see the widespread adoption of these methods by other lab- 

 oratories in the fields where they are applicable. 



It was Richards's belief that his career as a scientific investigator 

 brooked no interference outside the inevitable calls of the university 

 and his home. For this reason he never found time for the writing 

 of books. Aside from several monographs printed by the Carnegie 

 Institution and a collection of papers printed in Germany, his writ- 

 ings were confined to scientific papers, addresses, and biographies. 

 For the same reason he was always unwilling to undertake technical 

 or consulting work. And especially during recent years he was sel- 



