July 30, 1896] 



NATURE 



297 



AUGUST KEKUL£. 



BY the death of this eminent chemist at the age of 

 sixty-six, which took place on July 13, science 

 loses one of her most distinguished votaries. It is only 

 four years ago since a remarkable demonstration was 

 held in Bonn in celebration of the twenty-fifth year of 

 Kekule's professorship in that University. Two years 

 previously, in March 1S90, a similar rejoicing had been 

 held in Berlin in honour of the twenty-fifth anniversary 

 of the promulgation of the benzene theory by its illus- 

 trious author. It appears that Kekule was intended by 

 his father to have been an architect, and for that purpose 

 he was sent to Giessen to become proficient in the subject 

 after having undergone a preliminary training of the 

 ordinary kind at the Darmstadt Gymnasium. At Giessen 

 be came under the powerful spell of Liebig, and having 

 attended some lectures on chemistry by that great master, 

 his inclination towards the adoption of this science as a 

 profession instead of architecture appears to have received 

 a strong' impulse, .\fter a short period of probation at the 

 Darmstadt Polytechnicuni, where he tells us he learnt 

 chemistry under Moldenhauer,and spent his leisure in lathe- 

 turning^ and modelling in plaster, he returned to Giessen 

 and entered as a student under Liebig and Will. Even at 

 this stage of his career he appears to have been capable 

 of rendering material assistance to his master in the ex- 

 perimental work being carried on in connection with the 

 familiar " Letters on Chemistry," in which Liebig includes 

 the name of Kekule among those of many other chemists 

 now well known in science, in acknowledgment of the 

 services rendered by the future founder of structural 

 organic chemistry. That Liebig thought highly of his 

 pupil may be inferred from the circumstance that he very 

 nearly received the appointment of assistant in the 

 Giessen laboratory, then renowned throughout Europe 

 for the chemical work being carried on there. Instead 

 of remaining at Giessen, however, young Kekule went to 

 Paris, and having sat at the feet of Regnault, Fremy and 

 Wurtz, he was casually attracted by a course of lectures 

 on chemical philosophy advertised by Gerhardt, who had 

 resigned his professorship at Montpellier, and was giving 

 private courses of instruction in the French capital. 

 Gerhardt appears also to have recognised the capabilities 

 of his student, and an intimate personal friendship sprang 

 up between them. It is probable that this contact with 

 Gerhardt acted as a stimulus in developing the particular 

 faculty as a theoriser which must have been inherent in 

 Kekule, and which found expression in all his later work. 

 From Paris, where he declined an invitation to become 

 Gerhardt's assistant, he went for a short time to Switzer- 

 land as assistant to Von Plantu in the Castle of 

 Reichenau. After this Swiss sojourn, and chiefly at the 

 instigation of Bunsen, he accepted an offer from the late 

 Dr. Stenhouse, then at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and 

 for a time this country had the honour of fostering young 

 Kekule. The bent of his mind in the direction of chem- 

 ical theor>' is well brought out by his confession in later 

 life that he did not derive much profit from his experience 

 at St. Bartholomew's ; but having become acquainted with 

 Williamson, who had just completed his classical work on 

 etherification, he appears to have found a more congenial 

 outlet for his energies in the school of thought being 

 evolved by that investigator and Odling, and which he 

 declared, in 1892, to have been an excellent school "for 

 the encouragement of independent thought." While in 

 this country an offer was made to Kekule that he should 

 remain here as a technologist, but the Fatherland had 

 greater attractions for him ; his great ambition was to 

 become attached to a German University, and he started 

 a small laboratory in the house of a corn merchant in the 

 main street of Heidelberg, where he received pupils. In 

 these days of palatial laboratories, it is interesting to re- 

 call that in this little kitchen Kekule carried out his work 



NO. 1 396, VOL. 54] 



on the fulminates, and that Baeyer, then one of his pupils,, 

 conducted his researches on cacodyl. It is not the 

 laboratory that makes the chemist ! 



Kekuld's first call as ordinary professor was to Ghent, 

 where the Belgian Prime Minister was instrumental in 

 getting him a modest laboratory ; and here for nine years 

 he worked with a success that can be measured by the 

 fact that, in addition to Baeyer, he numbered among his 

 pupils Ladenburg, Victor Meyer, Wichelhaus, and others 

 whose names are as household words in the annals of 

 chemical science. From Ghent he was " called " to 

 Bonn, in which University the magnificent laboratories 

 grew under his inspiring^ influence, and where he remained 

 till the last, adding to the lustre of his reputation and 

 shedding the light of his intellect over that country in 

 which modern chemistry appears to have found its head- 

 quarters. 



As an experimentalist, Kekule's contributions to science 

 are not great as compared with the enormous influence 

 which his genius for theorising has exerted upon the 

 development of the science of the century. His greatest 

 and most precious gift was his power of penetrating into 

 the inner mysteries of molecular constitution, and it is 

 through this work that his name will ever be revered. It 

 was Kekule who first gave definite form to Frankland's 

 conception of valency, and his application of this idea to 

 the study of the carbon compounds was nothing less than 

 epoch-making. Out of this conception grew the famous 

 theory of cyclic compounds, which has been prolific to an 

 extent almost unparalleled in the history of pure science, 

 and which from the practical side has made Germany 

 what it is in the domain of organic chemical technology. 

 If the life-work of any chemist of our age need be quoted 

 as a standing protest against the cui bono attitude of 

 mind which we in this country are still suffering under, 

 and which relegates abstract theoretical studies to the 

 realms of " academic " thought remote from human 

 interests, let the speculations of August Kekule be put 

 forward as an answer crushing and complete for all time. 



The present writer never had the privilege of coming 

 into personal contact with the master-thinker who has so 

 recently passed away. His geniality of disposition 

 appears to have endeared him to all who came under his 

 influence. The chemists of this country join with those 

 of the Fatherland in mourning over the gap that has been 

 caused in their ranks. R- M. 



NOTES. 



The International Geological Congress will hold its seventh 

 session at St. Petersburg at the end of August next year,, 

 under the acting presidency of Dr. A. Karpinsky, and with the 

 Grand Duke Constantine as honorary president. The session 

 will continue about a week, and the proceedings of the Congress 

 will not be divided into sections, as at Zurich, but will be devoted 

 chiefly to the discussion of broad principles. Extended excur- 

 sions are announced, the most important being to the Ural 

 Mountains before, and to the Caucasus after, the meeting at 

 St. Petersburg. Shorter excursions have also been arranged to 

 Finland and elsewhere. Geologists who propose to attend this 

 meeting should send notice of the excursions in which they 

 wish to participate, before next October, to the General Secretary 

 of the Congress. The Emperor of Russia has decided, on the 

 favourable report of the Minister of Public Ways, to grant to all 

 geologists duly enrolled for the meeting, free first-class railway 

 tickets during their sojourn in Russia. 



The forty-second annual meeting of the German Geological 

 Society will be held at Stuttgart, on August 9-12. Another 

 important annual meeting is that of the German Anthropological 

 Society, which takes place on August 3-6, at Spires. 



