xxxviii Annual Report of the Council. 



Amsterdam, a post he held for eighteen years. In 1896 he- 

 was elected a professor in the University of Berlin, delivering 

 lectures on physical chemistry in the University, but carrying, 

 out his research work with his pupils in a private laboratory in 

 Charlottenburg. 



In a brief account it is impossible to do justice to the 

 impetus given to research, especially in the domain of physical' 

 chemistry, by the large number of investigations carried out by 

 him. Three subjects, however, stand out most prominently. 

 The earlier work of van't Hoff was chiefly in the field of organic 

 chemistry, and in this connection his genius soon led to the 

 formulation of a new idea with regard to structural organic 

 chemistry. In 1874 a short pamphlet was published, which put 

 forward the idea of three dimensional space formulge for organic 

 compounds, and also expressed the now well known relation 

 between optical activity and the presence of an asymmetric 

 carbon atom. In the following year the book " La Chemie dans 

 I'espace" appeared. This book contained a clear and full 

 account of the " tetrahedral " carbon atom, and may be said to- 

 have laid the foundations of the important science of stereo- 

 chemistry. 



The work, however, which will be always pre-eminently 

 associated with the name of van't Hoff appeared in 1886. In- 

 this year van't Hoff put forward his views on the analogy 

 between the laws relating to dilute solutions and the well known 

 laws relating to gases. Using a number of experimental results 

 obtained by Pfeffer, Traube, and others, in their investigations 

 on osmotic pressure, he was able to show the applicability of 

 the gas laws to dilute solution, and further that this close 

 relation in the behaviour of dilute solutions and gases was 

 thermodynamically necessary. It may be said that this develop- 

 ment, along with the electrolytic dissociation theory of Arrhenius, . 

 gave the first satisfactory theory of the general properties and , 

 relations of dilute solutions. 



