58 NATURE 
‘distinguished honour of membership of the Institute 
(Academie des Sciences). In 1884 he took the position 
of his late master, Prof. Wurtz, in the chair of Organic 
Chemistry at the Sorbonne. His merits were fully 
recognised in this country. In 1876 he became a foreign 
anember of the Chemical Society, and four years later he 
received the Davy Medal of the Royal Society. In 
1894 he made one of his rare visits to England to receive 
the degree of D.C.L. of Oxford University, an honour 
which he acknowledged as a great encouragement. 
His influence on the advance of science was of a two- 
fold character: as a teacher, and as an original investi- 
‘gator. He was not known as a popular lecturer or writer 
upon science ; but he had the happy faculty of infusing the 
love of science into the minds of the large number of 
students who attended his professorial lectures or worked 
in his laboratory. This result was no doubt greatly 
enhanced by the respect and personal attachment with 
which he was regarded. The advancement of education 
was in fact one of the objects of his life. This was 
evidenced by the successful efforts he made in promoting 
the Ecole Alsacienne in 1874, which, to use his own 
words, was “designed to react against the exclusively 
literary and formal instruction, and directed in a Pro- 
testant and Christian spirit, without having any denomin- 
ational colour.” Its aim was to develop in each scholar 
the faculties which belong to him, and to arouse a spirit 
of observation and scientific curiosity. Natural science 
has, of course, an honoured place in the curriculum. He 
watched over this school with great interest, and helped 
to make it one of the best in the capital of France. The 
‘technical side of science also engaged his attention ; and 
he had a large share in founding at Paris, three years 
ago, a laboratory of practical chemistry applied to in- 
dustry, at the Sorbonne, and to which he gave special 
attention. He was one of the founders of the French 
Chemical Society. It is said also that the French 
Association for the Advancement of Science owes its 
origin to his suggestion; at any rate he came to the 
meeting of the British Association at Brighton in 1872 to 
learn the details of its working, for the benefit of the 
French Association which was to be inaugurated at 
Bordeaux in September of that year. The two Associ- 
ations, though very different in their constitution, are 
carried on in much the same manner. M. Friedel 
generally took an important part in the French Associ- 
ation’s annual meetings. In the last of the numerous 
letters that I received from him, he made reference in 
hopeful terms to the approaching meetings of the two 
Associations at Dover and Boulogne in September next, 
and to the efforts which were in contemplation to bring 
together the savants of the two nations. 
Throughout the whole of his career he carried on 
original research, the results of which are published in 
about one hundred papers communicated to the Academy 
of Sciences and other learned societies. Some of these 
refer to the artificial formation of felspar and albite, 
crystallised quartz and other minerals, and to the 
dimorphism of zinc blende; but by far his most im- 
portant work has reference to the carbon compounds, 
and the long controversies which raged over the question 
of their constitution, and how it should be expressed. 
His first paper seems to have been a contribution, in 
1857, bearing on the constitution of acetone. This was 
followed by others on lactic acid, glycerine, propylene 
and other members of the three-carbon family. The 
relation of these bodies one to another, and to their 
isomers, led to much fruitful controversy. To him, in 
fact, is due in great measure the introduction of the new 
views of atomic valency, of which the chief apostles 
were Cannizzaro and Kekulé. In France these ideas 
were not readily received ; the chief advocacy of them 
came from the laboratory of Wurtz, and although Friedel 
had not the enthusiasm and brilliancy of the master, his 
NO. 1542, VOL. 60] 
[May 18, 1899 
expositions and arguments were wonderfully clear, and 
his experiments in support of them very convincing. 
Among these was the production, in conjunction with 
Ladenburg and Crafts, of a number of compounds of 
silicon and titanium showing the quadrivalence of these 
elements and their chemical analogy with carbon. In 
this way they broke down the barriers between organic 
and inorganic chemistry, and showed the generality of 
the laws of chemical combination. During these re- 
searches he was fortunate in discovering a new method, 
by means of chloride of aluminium, of bringing about 
the synthesis of organic compounds, often producing 
hydrocarbons of a highly complex character. 
With the rapid advance of chemical knowledge, 
especially in the organic department, and the gradual 
growth of chemical theory, the nomenclature was found 
to be inexact and often misleading. Hence in 1892 a 
congress of chemists was held in Geneva to revise the 
nomenclature. Leading representatives of chemical 
science from many countries met together, and Friedel 
was appointed president. The recommendations arrived 
at were published in Wurtz’s Dictionary of pure and 
applied chemistry, which was carried on under the 
direction of Friedel. 
But he did not confine his work to scientific teaching 
and investigation. Born in a Protestant family, he 
seems from his youth to have adopted the religious 
principles in which he was brought up. He sympathised 
with all Christian, philanthropic or patriotic movements 
of his country, and took an active part in many of them, 
especially those that related to the welfare of young 
men. Those of us who knew him intimately will feel 
disposed, like the President of the Academy in announcing 
his death, to dwell not so much on his great scientific 
achievements as on the amiability and uprightness of 
his character and on the moral worth of his personality. 
J. H. GLADSTONE. 
CHARLES NAUDIN. 
(Cees NAUDIN, whose contributions to science 
extend over the last sixty years, died on March 
19, at Antibes, at the age of eighty-four. A systematist 
by his studies of the orders Melastomaceae and Cucur- 
bitaceae, a biologist by his work on hybrids, he is perhaps 
best known by many contributions to economic botany. 
The bravery with which he met the hardships of his 
life wins admiration. His father, a schoolmaster, ruined 
himself ; his mother died when he was but eight years 
old. At Montpellier, while working for a degree, he 
served as usher in small establishments: the degree 
gained, he became a teacher at Chateau-Chinon, then at 
Cette. In 1839 we find him at Paris earning his living 
by teaching, by copying commercial letters, and lastly as 
a gardener at the Jardin des Plantes, burning the mid- 
night oil in order to obtain his licentiate in 1841 and the 
degree of Doctor of Science in 1842. _ 
After helping Saint-Hilaire with his flora or South 
Brazil, Naudin became professor of zoology at the 
Collége Chaptal. But, when success seemed assured, 
severe facial neuralgia and an incurable deafness, worse 
than the neuralgia, cut him off from free communion 
with his fellow-men. Forced back from his course, he 
applied himself again to herbarium-work, and the study of 
the Melastomaceae—an order richly represented in Brazil 
—gave him employment till 1849. g tae 
Five years later Decaisne made him his aide-nat- 
uraliste, and under his stimulus Naudin commenced the 
experiments on hybrids which secured his reputation. 
Darwinism had disturbed science; and Decaisne, who, 
like others, was asking what are species, had commenced 
to experiment on variability with admirable patience by 
growing pears from seed. Naudin chose the Gourd 
