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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 776 



triotie motives lead us to the earnest hope 

 that closer watch upon the economy of pro- 

 duction may bring about that conservation 

 of natural resources of which the poli- 

 ticians prate, but for which the chemist 

 works. How, then, can the status of the 

 independent commercial chemist be raised 

 in our city ? By giving him a central rally- 

 point; a home that proves to the layman 

 that his is a skilled profession, not a mere 

 job-hunting trade ; a place where the manu- 

 facturer or merchant can find the man he 

 wants without a rambling search through 

 the city directory. Doubtless, some of our 

 colleagues are so well known, that all the 

 business comes to them which they can 

 handle. But the many additional inde- 

 pendent chemists, whom our commercial 

 situation demands, can only establish them- 

 selves if they can secure proper laboratory 

 facilities, without hiring attics in tumble- 

 down rookeries. 



Every year scores of New Yorkers gradu- 

 ate in chemistry from our local institutions 

 and return from years of protracted study 

 in other American and European institu- 

 tions. They are enthusiastic for research; 

 in completing their theses they have laid 

 aside definite ideas for subsequent experi- 

 mentation; but they have no laboratory. 

 While waiting to hear from the teachers' 

 agency where they have registered, while 

 carrying on desultory correspondence with 

 manufacturers who may give them a 

 chance, they do not venture upon expendi- 

 ture of time and money to fit out a private 

 laboratory, which they may be called upon 

 to quit any minute upon the appearance of 

 that desired appointment. Often necessity 

 or tedium will cause them to accept tem- 

 porary work of an entirely different char- 

 acter and indefinitely postpone the execu- 

 tion of the experiments which they had 

 mapped out. Who will estimate the loss 

 of scientific momentum, the economic and 

 intellectual waste, which this lack of labo- 



ratory facilities for the graduate inflicts 

 upon New York, as compared with Berlin, 

 Vienna, Paris and London? Either our 

 universities and colleges, or private enter- 

 prise, should provide temporary desk-room 

 for the independent research chemist. 



So much for the purely practical side of 

 our question? How about the opportuni- 

 ties for presenting the results of investiga- 

 tion? We all appreciate the excellence of 

 the three chemical journals published by 

 our own society, as well as that of the So- 

 ciety of Chemical Industry, and we may 

 say that these, together with the independ- 

 ently conducted periodicals, enable every- 

 body to obtain a hearing; but it does seem 

 to me that the cost of subscribing to all of 

 these journals is excessive, and that much 

 unnecessary expense is incurred through 

 duplication of administrative efforts, as 

 well as through duplication of abstracts, 

 etc. This, of course, is a problem with 

 which we, as a local section, are not directly 

 called upon to deal; nevertheless, it is 

 proper to call the attention of those who 

 are interested in the management of chem- 

 ical societies in America to the fact that 

 membership alone in the various chemical 

 organizations of New York costs upward 

 of $50 per year, and that it would be but 

 fair to so arrange matters that the total 

 cost would be reduced by a sort of club- 

 bing arrangement, proportionately to the 

 number of societies to which a member be- 

 longs. It seems to me, however, that in one 

 particular point we are at a distinct dis- 

 advantage as compared with the foreign 

 chemists: the frequency of regular meet- 

 ings at which papers can be presented for 

 the purpose of securing priority of publica- 

 tion. Would it not be possible for our 

 various local sections, including the Chem- 

 ical Section of the New York Academy of 

 Sciences, to arrange the dates of their 

 meetings conjointly in such a way that a 

 meeting would occur once a week during 



