96 



CARNEGIE INSTITUTION. 



CHEMISTRY. (CHEMICAL THEORY.) 



ties, colleges, technical schools, learned societies, 

 and individuals." 



In Mr. Carnegie's deed of gift he further ex- 

 plains the objects of the institution. " It is pro- 

 posed," so runs the document, " to found in the 

 city of Washington an institution which with 

 the cooperation of institutions now or hereafter 

 established, there or elsewhere, shall in the broad- 

 est and most liberal manner encourage inves- 

 tigation, research, and discovery show the ap- 

 plication of knowledge to the improvement of 

 mankind, provide such buildings, laboratories, 

 books, and apparatus, as may be needed; and af- 

 ford instruction of an advanced character to stu- 

 dents properly qualified to profit thereby. Among 

 it- aims are these: 



" 1. To promote original research, paying great 

 attention thereto as one of the most important 

 of all departments. 



" 2. To discover the exceptional man in every 

 department of study, whenever and wherever 

 found, inside or outside of schools, and enable 

 him to make the work for which he seems spe- 

 cially designed his life work. 



" 3. To increase facilities for higher education. 



" 4. To increase the efficiency of the universi- 

 ties and other institutions of learning through- 

 out the country, by utilizing and adding to their 

 existing facilities and aiding teachers in the vari- 

 ous institutions for experimental and other work 

 in these institutions as far as advisable." 



The trustees are: President of the United 

 States, President of the Senate, Speaker of the 

 House of Representatives, Secretary of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution, and President of the National 

 Academy of Sciences (all ex offtcio) and Dan- 

 iel C. (Jili 11 jui. president; Abram S. Hewitt, 

 chairman ; John S. Billings, vice-chairman ; 

 Charles D. Walcott, secretary; William N. Frew, 

 Lyman J. Gage, John Hay, Henry L. Higginson, 

 Henry Hitchcock (since deceased), Charles L. 

 Hutchinson, William Lindsay, Seth Low, Wayne 

 MacVeagh, D. O. Mills, S. Weir Mitchell, William 

 W. Morrow, Elihu Root, John C. Spooner, An- 

 drew D. White, Edward D. White, and Carroll D. 

 Wright. E. A. Hitchcock, Secretary of the In- 

 terior, was elected a trustee to fill the vacancy 

 made by the death of his brother, Henry Hitch- 

 cock, of St. Louis. 



The trustees at their annual meeting in Novem- 

 ber, 1902, adopted the following propositions as 

 guides for the Executive Committee in selecting 

 projects to which the funds and energies of the 

 institution are to be devoted: 



" First, to promote original research by sys- 

 tematically sustaining 



" (a) Projects of broad scope that may lead 

 to the discovery and utilization of new forces for 

 the benefit of man, pursuing each with the great- 

 est possible thoroughness. 



" (6) Projects of minor scope that may fill in 

 gaps in knowledge, of particular things or re- 

 stricted fields of research. 



" (c) Administration of a definite or stated re- 

 search under a single direction by competent in- 

 dividuals. 



(d) Appointment of research assistants. 



" Second, to increase facilities for higher edu- 

 cation by promoting (a) original research in uni- 

 versities and institutions of learning by such 

 means as may be practicable and advisable, (ft) 

 The use by advanced students of the opportu- 

 nities offered for special study and research by 

 the Government bureaus in Washington. 



The Carnegie Institution will not undertake: 



' (a) To do anything that is being well done 

 by other agencies. 



" (b) To do that which can be better done by 

 other agencies. 



" (c) To enter the field of existing organiza- 

 tions that are properly equipped or are likely 

 to be so equipped. 



" ((/) To give aid to individuals or organiza- 

 tions in order to relieve them of financial respon- 

 sibilities which they are able to carry or in order 

 that they may divert funds to other purposes. 



" (e) To enter the field of applied science, ex- 

 cept in unusual cases. 



" (/) To purchase land or erect buildings for 

 any organization. 



" (g) To aid institutions when it is practica- 

 ble to accomplish the same result by aiding indi- 

 viduals who may or may not be connected with 

 institutions. 



" (7t) To provide for a general or liberal course 

 of education." 



At the same meeting the following appropria- 

 tions were authorized: For scientific research, 

 $200,000; for the reserve fund, $100,000; for ad- 

 ministrative expenses, $50,000; for the publica- 

 tion of scientific memoirs and papers, $40,000. 

 It was decided to issue a year-book in December, 

 1902, to contain the advisory reports and such 

 other information regarding the work of the in- 

 stitution as might be deemed wise. 



CHEMISTRY. Chemical Theory. A con- 

 siderable part of the address of Prof. James 

 Dewar as president of the British Association, at 

 Belfast, Sept. 10, was devoted to the discussion 

 of researches concerning extreme cold, the ab- 

 solute zero, and the liquefaction and congelation 

 of gases, with which the speaker had been closely 

 associated. The first conception of a zero of 

 temperature is accredited to Ainonson, who in 

 1794 constructed a thermometer scale in which 

 the zero was placed at a point corresponding with 



240 of the centigrade scale " a remarkable ap- 

 proximation to our modern value for this point 

 of minus 273 degrees." Amonson's experiments 

 were verified by Lambert in 1779, who estimated 

 the value of the zero as 270. Other es- 

 timates followed, with widely varying results, 

 till in 1848, when " the whole question took an 

 entirely new form," and Lord Kelvin, applying 

 the principles underlying Carnot's work on the 

 Motive Power of Heat, calculated the zero at 



273 C. " It was a great advance to demon- 

 strate by the application of the laws of thermody- 

 namics not only that the zero of temperature is a 

 reality, but that it must be located at 273 below 

 the freezing-point of water. As no one has at- 

 tempted to impugn the solid foundation of theory 

 and experiment on which Lord Kelvin based his 

 thermodynamic scale, the existence of a definite 

 zero of temperature must be acknowledged as a 

 fundamental scientific fact." Systematic experi- 

 ments in the production of extreme cold are 

 traced from the production of liquid carbonic 

 acid by Thilorier in large quantities and his 

 discovery, in 1835, that the liquid could be frozen 

 into a snow by its own evaporation. A very 

 important step in the investigation was the 

 Bakerian lecture of Andrews, in 1869. on The Con- 

 tinuity of the Gaseous and Liquid States of flat- 

 ter, in which the critical temperature and the re- 

 lations of pressure were defined and experimen- 

 tal proof was given that " the gaseous and liquid 

 states are only distinct stages of the same condi- 

 tion of matter, and are capable of passing into 

 one another by a process of continuous change." 



Van der Waals, in his essay On the Continuity 

 of the Gaseous and Liquid States, gave " the 

 equation of continuity," involving the relations 

 or pressure, temperature, and volume; molecular 



