428 



NA TURE 



[AuGUbT 29, 190 I 



SOME SCIENTIFIC CENTRES. 

 II.— The Laboratory of Wilhelm Ostwald. 



THE year eighteen hundred and eighty-seven is 

 memorable in the history of physical chemistry ; it 

 witnessed the pubhcation of van 't HofTs discovery of the 

 identity of the laws of gases with those of dilute solu- 

 tions ; and it was the year in which Arrhenius in a classic 

 memoir enunciated his theory of electrolytic dissociation ; 

 for the University of Leipzig it had a special significance, 

 as it was then that Ostwald succeeded Wiedemann in the 

 chair of physical chemistry and founded, with van 't Hofif, 

 the Zeilsiin-ift fiir physikalische Cheniie. Heidelberg, 

 it is true, had been the first to devote a special chair to 

 the new subject, and Kopp had held it from 1864 ; but 

 Kopp devoted his time almost entirely to research, and 

 it remained to Wiedemann, who, in 1871, was appointed 



in every way unfitted for the carrying on of those delicate 

 experiments which brought Ostwald to the forefront of 

 scientific workers. Research was carried on under 

 countless difficulties ; the light was bad, the rooms 

 unventdated, the heating effected by means of stoves 

 difficult to regulate and producing dust which caused 

 much injury to the finer instruments ; no precautions had 

 been taken in laying the foundations to ensure the 

 deadening of vibrations ; thus many experiments were 

 ruined ; the lack of space precluded the use of tele- 

 scopes for reading scales, and altogether it would have 

 been difficult to construct a laboratory worse adapted for 

 physico-chemical investigations. But in spite of all these 

 drawbacks the laboratories were soon overcrowded, and 

 additional benches had to be fitted up in the corridors 

 and cellars to accommodate the increasing numbers. 

 In 1897 the University and the Saxon Government 



O^tivald and van 't Hoff. (Taken in Oslw.iW^ pri% 

 Ostwald's apparatus for automatically registering 

 chromium in acids. 



hor of this article begs to acknowledge his indebtedn 



i.ainn sho,vs the two investigators standing by Prof. 

 Luliar phenomena attending the solution of metallic 



ng photograph at his 



to the newly created chair at Leipzig, to institute a school 

 for the investigation of these new problems. In 1887 he 

 gave place to Wilhelm Ostwald, confining himself thence- 

 forth to the study of pure physics, of which he had been 

 made professor. 



Ostwald was born in Riga on September 2, 1853 ; 

 at an early age he devoted himself to the study of 

 physics and chemistry at the University of Dorpat, where 

 he ^'' habilitierte" in 1878. After teaching there for two 

 years he was made " ordentlicher Professor" at the Riga 

 Polytechnic, which position he held until called to Leipzig 

 in 1887. 



The Leipzig laboratory, in which he worked until 1S97, 

 was situated in the " Landwirtschaftliche Institut," an 

 old pile originally devoted to agricultural chemistry, and 



NO. 1 66 1, VOL. 64] 



gave proof of their appreciation of the importance of 

 the new science and of Ostwald's services by placing at 

 his disposal a new specially erected PhysicoChemical 

 Institute, equipped with all the accessories that modern 

 ingenuity has devised. 



The work of Ostwald is intimately associated with the 

 theories of van 't Hoff and Arrhenius. In an address 

 delivered in 1891 before the sections of physics and 

 chemistry at the yearly meeting of the German men of 

 science, Ostwald described what his own and the general 

 attitude was towards the views put forward by these two 

 men. 



" The consequences connected with van 't HofTs dis- 

 covery being so important and wide-reaching, it had in 

 general a friendly reception, though a few scientific men 



