768 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1913. 



Eeturning to his native country, he took up his studies at Lej^den 

 again, and in September, 1874, published a brief paper in Dutch, 

 in which he stated fully and succinctly all the essential portion of 

 the stereochemical theory. This publication, the outcome of which 

 Ave shall discuss later, preceded by two months a similar publication 

 by Le Bel. The young man did not venture to present this work as a 

 thesis for the directorate, but preferred to confine himself to a modest 

 dissertation on cyanacetic and malonic acids, with which thesis he 

 obtained his degree of doctor of philosophy December 22, 1874. 



The following year we find him in search of an occupation which 

 should be suitable to his taste and, above all, would permit him to 

 continue his chosen studies. His first attempt to obtain a modest 

 position as professor in the technical school at Breda was unsuccess- 

 ful. Amusing, and at the same time touching, is the letter which the 

 director of this school wrote to the minister of public instruction, 

 describing to him this young man, with distraught air, with the ap- 

 pearance of an inventor, entirely absorbed in his great visions and 

 seeing only his atoms and their valences disposed in space; he con- 

 cluded by saying that, according to his judgment and the unanimous 

 opinion of the colleagues of the school, A^an't Hoff was not the man 

 for such a position. 



In 1876 van't Hoff was finally made docent of the veterinary school 

 of Utrecht, where he stayed but a little more than a year, being 

 called as lecturer to the new university which the city of Amsterdam 

 had just founded. He w^as not slow in gaining the esteem and con- 

 sideration of his superiors, and as early as 1878 was made professor 

 of chemistry, mineralogy, and geology. He occupied this position 

 for 17 years; that is to say, until 1895. To this period, which is the 

 most important of his scientific life, belong his great works on chemi- 

 cal equilibrium and on the theory of solutions. It Avas the period of 

 extraordinary growth of physical chemistry", and A^an't Hoff was soon 

 universally recognized as the most gifted representative and the best 

 authority of the new school of which Ostwald was the unrivaled 

 propagandist. 



His fame grew rapidly ; in 1887 the University of Leipzig invited 

 him to accept a chair, which he refused; in 1889, when scarcely 37 

 years of age, he was made honoraiy member of the German Chemical 

 Society, an honor aspired to by the greatest scientists. Finally, in 

 1896, the University of Berlin called him in a specially honorable 

 way ; he Avas made honorary ordinary professor, Avithout being placed 

 under the obligation of teaching; the Academy of Sciences made 

 him an active member, and furnished him the means to establish a 

 laboratory for research. In this laboratory he devoted himself for 

 10 years to the investigation of the conditions of formation of the 

 saline deposits at Stassfurt, the first great attempt to apply the 



