NOTCMBEB 12, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



665 



from their visit a crystalline rather than a 

 colloidal vision of chemistrj' in America. 



And so, gentlemen, I have preferred to 

 devote the minutes which custom permits 

 your chairman to employ in airing his per- 

 sonal views, to a survey of the conditions 

 affecting chemistry in New York, rather 

 than to the presentation of some debatable 

 scientific ideas, as I had originally in- 

 tended. The choice of the more subjective 

 topic is rendered more appropriate by the 

 fact that this meeting is to be followed by 

 a session of the Chemists' Club, called for 

 the purpose of settling a question vitally 

 affecting the intei'ests of New York 

 chemists. 



Eighteen yeai-s ago, when the men who 

 had carried the American Chemical Society 

 through so many vicissitudes organized 

 this section, in order that the general so- 

 ciety might become a truly national one, 

 I had the honor, rather than the duty, of 

 being the first local secretary. The meet- 

 ings were so poorly attended, the original 

 papers so seai'ce, and the general business 

 so unimportant, that no heavy work de- 

 veloped upon its officers. We met in the 

 chapel of the old university building, where 

 Professor Hall and I had our primitive 

 laboratories, out of which we carved, with 

 some difficulty, shelf-room for the fragmen- 

 tary society library. When we felt in need 

 of a little variety, we sat in Profe-ssor 

 Chandler's lecture-room in 49th Street 

 and listened to the passing trains; or in 

 East 2.3d Street, peered at the chairman 

 ensconsed behind batteries of Professor 

 Doremus's bell- jars and air-pumps. An 

 attendance of forty members, I believe, was 

 a record-breaking event. 



I need hardly expatiate upon the won- 

 derful changes that have been wrought 

 since 1891. Our three colleges have moved 

 far up-town, and the splendid Havemeyer 

 Laboratories of Columbia and New York 

 University, and the beautiful new chem- 



istry building on St. Nichola.s Terrace, make 

 us glad to miss the dingy and crowded 

 places where chemistry was taught an 

 academic generation ago. Our own section 

 and kindred societies have been meeting in 

 this hall of the Chemists' Club for the past 

 ten seasons, and no one can estimate what 

 share a fixed and commodioas meeting- 

 place has borne in the marvelous increase 

 in membership and attendance. The other 

 important factor is, of course, the growth 

 of chemical industry in this vicinity. 



While we can, therefore, congratulate 

 ourselves upon the great strides that have 

 been made, during the past two decades, it 

 behooves us to inquire whether there are 

 not still some drawbacks to our progress, 

 not by way of carping criticism, but for 

 the purpose of seeking such effective reme- 

 dies that future progress may be made ab- 

 solutely certain. 



For obvious reasons, we need not ask 

 whether the internal conditions in the 

 chemical factories are satisfactory; since 

 there the managers must know that their 

 success depends upon the scientific abilities 

 of their chemists. It is doubtful whether 

 the same can be said of the establishments 

 which employ a chemist or two to apply 

 specific tests; and it is certain that there 

 are still many factories which conduct, by 

 rule of thumb, operations that should be 

 continually controlled by scientific tests, if 

 shameful waste is to be avoided. 



The American people are but slowly 

 learning the importance of the educated 

 banker and the expert accountant alongside 

 the brilliant financier and the bold specula- 

 tor ; similarly, while they acclaim the clever 

 inventor and the skilful engineer, they 

 have yet to recognize the worth of that 

 expert accountant of material economy, the 

 industrial chemist. Quite aside, therefore, 

 from any wi.sh for greater profits to our 

 associates who are gaining their daily bread 

 as commercial or analytical chemists, pa- 



