134 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



in 1841. In his junior year he published a paper on a new kind 

 of galvanic battery in which carbon was used, probably for the 

 first time, as the inactive plate. 



Though never practicing medicine, Gibbs obtained a diploma 

 from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, in 

 1845, having previously been associated with Professor Robert 

 Hare in his laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania. To 

 perfect his training in chemistry, Dr. Gibbs spent some time in 

 Berlin, at Giessen, and in Paris, and among his teachers Hein- 

 rich Rose probably stands foremost in the influence which he 

 had in turning Gibbs' attention toward analytical and inorganic 

 chemistry. 



After his return to America, Dr. Gibbs served as Professor 

 of Chemistry in the Free Academy, now the College of the 

 City of New York, for 14 years. Much of his time was given to 

 research work, and in 1857, in connection with Genth, Dr. Gibbs 

 published an important memoir on the ammonia-cobalt bases, 

 which brought him prominently to the notice of the scientific 

 world. 



He became associate editor of the American Journal of 

 Science in 1851, and furnished abstracts amounting to 500 pages 

 to that periodical. In 1861 he published his researches on the 

 platinum metals, which established his reputation as a chemist. 



In 1863 he was called to the Rumford professorship at 

 Harvard University. Besides lecturing on heat and light, Pro- 

 fessor Gibbs had charge of the chemical laboratory in the 

 Lawrence Scientific School. Associated in this school with 

 Agassiz, Gray, Wyman, Peirce and Cooke, he carried on 

 research work for eight years, at the same time supervising the 

 work of the post-graduate students whose investigations were 

 undertaken on their own initiative, with only a final examination 

 for the bachelor's degree, after the pattern of the German schools, 

 whose methods, through the influence of Gibbs, were thus intro- 

 duced into the United States. 



After the consolidation of the Scientific School with the 

 College at Harvard, Professor Gibbs retained only the Rum- 



