THEODOKE WILLIAM RICHAEDS BAXTER 745 



exchange professor, the only instruction which he ever gave away 

 from Cambridge. 



Although theoretically exempt from administrative duties after 

 his call to Gottingen, in time of need he did not hesitate to step into 

 the breach as chairman of the division of chemistry from 1903 to 

 1911, and in this capacity served the division with the most consci- 

 entious attention to detail and with far vision for the future. 



All of Richards's early experimental work was performed under 

 most trying conditions in an old and inadequate structure. At no 

 time could he feel sure that noxious gases produced in some remote 

 part of the building would not find their way into his laboratory to 

 ruin the products of days or weeks of labor. On one occasion the 

 ceiling of his laboratory was brought down about his ears by a 

 miniature flood in the room overhead. At this period constant watch- 

 fulness to avoid untoward accidents of this sort was as important for 

 his work as analytical skill. That he was able to carry on his work 

 at all under these conditions is a splendid example of the superiority 

 of man over circumstances. Visions of a new laboratory, with free- 

 dom from dirt and fumes as well as vibrations, were in his mind al- 

 most from the outset. At times the fulfillment of his hopes seemed 

 so imminent that he prepared detailed plans for a research laboratory 

 for exact work, only to be met with disappointment. It was not 

 until 1912 that he was enabled to realize his ambitions in this direc- 

 tion. Largely through the generosity and interest of Dr. Morris 

 Loeb funds for a research laboratory of physical chemistry were 

 secured. Richards immediately set about the perfecting of the de- 

 signs of an ideal laboratory with the same care, thoroughness, and 

 imagination with which he undertook a scientific investigation. In 

 equipment, convenience, freedom from fumes and dirt, and from 

 rapid temperature changes the Wolcott Gibbs Memorial Laboratory 

 has probabl}^ never been equaled. 



The list of honors which he received was a most imposing one. Be- 

 tween 1905 and 1923 he was the recipient of honorary degrees of 

 D. Sc. from Yale, Harvard, Cambridge (England), Oxford, Man- 

 chester, and Princeton; of LL. D. from Haverford, Pittsburgh, and 

 Pennsylvania ; of Ph. D. from Prague and Christiania ; of Chem. D. 

 from Clark, and even of M. D. from Berlin. The Davy medal of the 

 Royal Society (London) was received in 1910. On the occasion of 

 the award to him of the Farada}^ medal of the Chemical Society 

 (London) in 1911 he delivered an address" on The Fundamental 

 Properties of the Elements. In 1912 the award of the Gibbs medal 

 of the Chicago section of the American Chemical Society was the 

 occasion of an address on Atomic Weights. The Franklin medal was 

 given to him by the Franklin Institute in 1916. The second Amer- 

 ican scientist and the only American chemist to receive the Nobel 



