Knowledge. 



With which is incorporated Hardwicke's Science Gossip, and the Illustrated Scientific News. 



A Monthly Record of Science. 



Conducted bv Wilfred Mark Webb, F.L.S., and E. S. Grew, M..\. 



DECEMBER, 1910. 



SIXTY YEARS OF CHEMICAL PROGRESS. 



Bv E. S. GREW. M.A. 



Last month (Friday, November 11th), the Chemical 



Society held for the third time in its history a 



Jubilee Banquet, entertaining thereat, as guests of 



the evening. Professor ^^'iHiam Odling, F.R.S., 



Sir ^^'ilIiam Crookes. O.M.. 



F.R.S.. Dr. Hugo Miiller. 



F.R.S.. and Dr. .A.. G. \ernon 



Harcourt, F.R.S. The fifth 



guest, Sir Henr\- Roscoe, 



F.R.S., who, Hke the other 



four, has been a President of 



the Society and a member 



of it for fifty years, was, 



unfortunately, unable to be 



present. 



It is nearly seventv years 

 since the Chemical Society 

 was founded (on March 30th, 

 1841), and its two previous 

 Jubilee Banquets commemo- 

 rated its foundation and 

 the granting of its Royal 

 Charter of Incorporation bv 

 Queen ^'ictoria. on Novem- 

 ber 2nd, 1848. At the ^ir William Crookes 



first of these banquets. Dr. \\". J. Russell. 

 F.R.S., who died a vear ago (November 12th, 

 1909), presided ; and among the speakers on that 

 occasion were the late Marquis of Salisbury and 

 the late Lord Playfair. At the second Jubilee 

 Banquet no fewer than si.\ of its past Presidents 



who had been members of the Society for fifty years 

 were the guests of the evening. Their names were 

 Professor J. H. Gilbert (of the Rothamsted experi- 

 ments). Sir Edward Frankland, Professor William 

 Odling. Professor A. W. 

 Williamson. Sir Frederick 

 Abel, and Dr. J. Hall 

 Gladstone. Lord Playfair 

 was to have been the re- 

 maining guest — the first in 

 point of seniority: but he 

 died before the Banquet 

 took place, and it was post- 

 poned from June to Novem- 

 ber in consequence. At the 

 time of his death, in June, 

 4898, he was the last sur- 

 vivor of the seventy-seven 

 chemists who had joined the 

 Society as original members 

 on its foundation. 



Of the other past Presi- 

 dents at that banquet, all now 

 are dead, except Professor 

 in his' Laboratory-. Odling. whose perennial 



vouth of spirit, may, we hope, preserve him to science 

 and education for rears to come. Professor Odling 

 was born in 1829", and is still Waynflete Professor 

 of Chemistry at Oxford University-. He has made 

 his mark as a teacher and as a philosophic chemist 

 of the highest rank; and he is known throughout 



463 



