LATER YEARS 181 



that whatever one supposed that a Norwegian would do he 

 invariably did the opposite. Indeed there was nearly a blood- 

 less revolution while we were there ; the Prime Minister of 

 Norway was there, and I believe the dilemma was only post- 

 poned." 



In the Presidential Addresses to the Chemical Society 

 in 1908 and 1909 there are utterances on questions 

 which are somewhat cognate to the subject of the address 

 at St. Louis already quoted. In the former occur the 

 following passages : 



" Like most other chemists and physicists I choose deliberately 

 the mechanical explanation of nature. We assume on what we 

 consider to be good grounds the existence of molecules and of 

 atoms. We believe on reasonable evidence that gases consist 

 of almost innumerable molecules which may, like argon and its 

 congeners, be single atoms, but which are usually groups of 

 atoms. We hold that, as a rule, liquids consist of molecules of 

 the same order of complexity as gases, but with smaller free path ; 

 the molecules of a liquid are more crowded than those of a gas. 

 Some few liquids water, the alcohols, the acids, probably salts 

 and some others may be regarded as mixtures of polymerides 

 of their gaseous molecules. Of the structure of solids we are 

 only beginning to have some crude notion. 



We also believe that molecules at the ordinary temperature 

 are in enormously rapid motion ; that they are in frequent 

 collison with each other, and that chemical action is the occasional 

 result of such collisions, . . . but the process of combination is a 

 comparatively slow one, and it is curious to think that a collision 

 which is followed by a combination is a comparatively rare event. 

 . . . What is meant by chemical action ? We can represent it 

 as a loss or gain of energy, but we also regard it as the union or 

 junction of atoms, or it may be the dissolution of such union or 

 the readjustment of unions, so that bodies with new properties 



