WOLCOTT GIBBS. 881 



WOLCOTT GIBBS (1822-1908) 



Fellow in Class I, Section 3, 1849. 



A pathfinder in American chemistry, a fellow of this Academy from 

 1849 until the end of his life, and one of the founders of the National 

 Academy of Sciences, Wolcott Gibbs was an important contributor 

 to the scientific development of this Country. He was born on 

 February 21, 1822, and lived for over 86 years. At the time of his 

 death on December 9th, 1908, he had been for a long time almost the 

 onl}^ survivor among our chemical pioneers, and for over a decade he 

 had headed in academic seniority the list of the Faculties of Harvard 

 University. 



Wolcott Gibbs's childhood was spent partly in Boston and partly 

 in New York, where he graduated from Columbia College at the age 

 of 19 in 1841. His first scientific publication had already appeared 

 while he was in college, and afterwards he became Robert Hare's 

 assistant in Philadelphia. In 1848, he was made assistant professor 

 at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, and in 1849 

 full professor of chemistry and physics in the newly founded Free 

 Academy, later the College of the City of New York. Here he re- 

 mained for 14 years. His Unitarian faith having excluded him from 

 a proposed professorship in Columbia University, he was called in 

 1863 as Rumford professor to Harvard University, where he had 

 charge of the chemical laboratory of the Lawrence Scientific School, 

 and gave lectures on light and heat. Here, largely devoting himself 

 to his own researches because of the special circumstances involved 

 in the separation of his laboratory from the field of undergraduate 

 work, he served until 1887, when he was made professor emeritus, 

 and retired to the quiet life in his garden on Gibbs Avenue at New- 

 port, R. I., and his private laboratory not far away. 



It is impossible here to present a detailed survey of the greatly 

 varied fields in which his work lay, but a brief sketch will give some 

 idea of the activity of his scientific undertakings and imagination. 

 His first important research concerned the complex ammonia-cobalt 

 compounds, one of the most interesting series among inorganic sub- 

 stances. This masterly work, conducted with the collaboration of 

 F. A. Genth, shed much light upon the puzzling nature of complex 

 compounds in general, and laid the foundation for one of the most 

 elaborate of modern chemical theories. The following years (1860-4) 



