March ii, 1920] 



NATURE 



4^ 



Obituary. 

 i'KOF. J. Emersox Reynolds, F.R.S. 

 pROF. JAMES EMERSON REYNOLDS, 

 ^ whose death at seventy-five years of age 

 was announced in Nature of February 26, was 

 born in 1844 in Booterstovvn, a suburb of 

 Dublin. His father was a medical practitioner 

 and proprietor of a medical hall, and it was while 

 assisting his father that he first became enamoured 

 of the study of chemistry. Destined to follow in 

 ;c profession of his father, Reynolds studied 

 cdicine, and became a licentiate of the Royal 

 >llegc of Physicians and Surgeons of Edinburgh. 

 1 hough he practised in Dublin for a short time, 

 - great desire was to devote himself to chemistry, 

 (1 his chance to discard medicine soon came 

 iien, in March, 1867, he was appointed "keeper 

 minerals " at the National Museum in Dublin, 

 id in the following year analyst to the Royal 

 ' )ublin Society. It was here that he made 

 Ills first important contribution to chemistry. 

 Ill 1869 he discovered thiocarbamide, the 

 sulphur analogue of urea, which he obtained as 

 a result of the isomeric transformation of 

 ammonium thiocyanate. This was a discovery 

 which attracted a good deal of attention at the 

 time, since Liebig and, later, Hofmann had both 

 been unsuccessful in their attempts to isolate the 

 compound — in fact, Hofmann had previously sug- 

 gested that ammonium thiocyanate was probably 

 thiourea. 



Two years later, in a paper communicated to 

 the Royal Society, Reynolds described the pre- 

 paration of an interesting compound of acetone 

 and mercuric oxide, of the composition 

 2(CH3.CO.CH3),3HgO, which was the first 

 example of a colloidal mercurial derivative. The 

 conditions under which this body is formed con- 

 stitute a very delicate reaction for the detection 

 of acetone. 



In 1875 Reynolds was appointed to the chair 

 of chemistry in the University of Dublin in suc- 

 cession to the late Dr. Apjohn, having previously 

 been for two years professor of chemistry at the 

 Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland. He quickly 

 established for himself a high reputation as a 

 teacher and lecturer, and for a few years his 

 rgies were mainly directed towards the 

 elopment of the teaching of chemistry on 

 original lines. Shortly after his appointment he 

 commenced the writing of his well-known 

 "Experimental Chemistry for Junior Students," 

 ■which was ultimately published in four small 

 volumes. The first volume was a distinctly 

 original work. By the aid of a progressive series 

 of simple and well-tested experiments, the junior 

 student was enabled to verifv for himself the 

 fundamental laws of chemistry by quantitative 

 results. Whilst the quantitative method is now 

 universally adopted in the early training of the 

 student, Reynolds must be given the credit of 

 having been the first to introduce it, now forty 

 years ago. The experimental illustration of his 

 NO. 2628, VOL. 105] 



lectures was a matter to which Reynolds gave 

 great attention and a good deal of his time. If, 

 from one cause or another, an experiment failed, 

 which was of rare occurrence, it was always 

 successfully repeated on the following occasion. 

 As a result, his lectures were very attractive, and 

 the discipline which he maintained in his classes 

 was proverbial in the college. 



This, it can be understood, was not attained 

 without the display of a certain amount of well- 

 meant severity, and, though Reynolds always 

 refused to nourish popularity at the sacrifice of 

 a surrender of discipline, he was nevertheless held 

 in high esteem by all young men who came under 

 his tuition. Past students have many times 

 spoken to the writer of their great appreciation 

 of Reynolds as a lecturer, teacher, and disciplin- 

 arian. 



Whilst his professional duties absorbed most 

 of his time, Reynolds continued research, and, 

 from a comparison of the specific heats of silver 

 and beryllium (glucinum), which he had prepared 

 in a nearly pure state, he showed that the atomic 

 weight of the latter must be taken as 9, and that 

 the element was a member of the family of 

 alkaline earths. 



In 1885 his researches on organic derivatives 

 of silicon, in which this element was united to 

 nitrogen, were commenced. The results were 

 described in a series of more than a dozen papers 

 published in the Transactions of the Chemical 

 Society up to 1909. Amongst several new sub- 

 stances which were prepared, perhaps the most 

 interesting was the beautifully crystalline silico- 

 tetraphenylamide, Si(NH.C6H5)4, the carbon 

 analogue of which has never been obtained, and 

 by the action of heat silico-diphenylimide, 

 Si(NC6H5)2, was obtained, the carbon analogue of 

 which is well known. After twenty-eight years' 

 occupation of the chair of chemistry in the 

 University of Dublin, Reynolds retired in 1903, 

 and went to live in London, where he continued 

 work in the Davy-Faraday Laboratorv. 



Reynolds's last contribution to chemistry, 

 published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society 

 in 191 3, was an interesting synthesis of the 

 mineral anorthite, CaAI.SioOs, which he prepared 

 by the combined action of oxygen and water 

 vapour at a high temperature on the synthetic 

 substance Ca(SiAl)o. which he had previously 

 prepared. Reynolds had many honours conferred 

 upon him during his career. He was elected a 

 fellow of the Royal Society in 1880, and vice- 

 president in 1901, president of the Chemical 

 Society 1901-3, president of the Society of 

 Chemical Industry 1891-92, and president of the 

 chemical section of the British Association in 

 1893. Reynolds died suddenly on Tuesdav. 

 February 17, at his residence in London. He was 

 an honorary M.D. and Sc.D. of the University of 

 Dublin. He married, in 1875, a daughter of 

 Canon Finlayson, of Dublin. He leaves two 

 children, a son and a daughter. 



E. A. W. 



