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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LII. No. 1352 



of Jolins Hopkins and the wisdom of his 

 trustees and of President Gilman. 



Morse remained an associate until 1883, 

 when he became an associate professor. In 

 1892 he was promoted to be professor of in- 

 organic and analytical chemistry, and in 1908 

 he became director of the chemical laboratory. 

 In 1916 he withdrew from active service and 

 became professor emeritus. 



From the beginning of our work in the 

 new university the importance of research 

 was emphasized. That was indeed its most 

 characteristic feature. Morse was as anxious 

 as any of us to take part in this work. For 

 one reason and another it was some time 

 before he got going. To be sure he did 

 show his hand in some small and rather un- 

 promising pieces of work and I think he 

 became diseoiiraged, but he was faithful to 

 his teaching. Gradually, however, his re- 

 searches opened up new fields and he began 

 their exploration. This is not the place for a 

 full review of his contributions, and those of 

 his last years so overshadowed all that pre- 

 ceded that a reference to those alone will 

 do substantial justice to his memory. 



In the early nineties he turned his attention 

 seriously to the question of the stability of 

 solutions of potassium permanganate and in 

 1896 he published an article on " The pro- 

 duction of permanganic acid by manganese 

 superoxide," A. J. Hopkins and M. S. Walker 

 appearing as joint authors. Pursuing this 

 subject Morse and H. G. Byers in 1900 pub- 

 lished an article " On the cause of the evolu- 

 tion of oxygen when oxidisable gases are ab- 

 sorbed by permanganic acid." The results 

 were such that it became desirable to obtain 

 an aqueous solution of pure permanganic acid. 

 It was decided to prepare this by dissolving 

 the heptoxide in water. In an article by 

 Morse and J. C. Olsen that appeared in 1900 

 occurs the following passage: 



(We) accordingly prepared a quantity of the 

 anhydride by mixing potassium permanganate and 

 concentrated sulphuric acid in vessels cooled by ice 

 and salt. We soon learned, however, that some- 

 thing more than a low temperature is essential to 



safety in handling the product; for a minute 

 quantity of the anhydride — certainly less than half 

 a drop — which had been separated from the sul- 

 phuric acid, exploded with great violence and with 

 disastrous results to one of us.i Some idea of the 

 force of the explosion may toe gained from the 

 fact that one of the flying fragments of glass 

 passed entirely through a burette which was 

 mounted in the vicinity, leaving holes over half 

 the diameter of the burette, edges of which were 

 entirely free from cracks. After this experience, 

 we decided to abandon the anhydride as a source 

 of the acid, and to work out, if practicable, an 

 electrolytic method of separating it from its salts. 



The electrolytic method worked very satis- 

 factorily, and led to the further use of this 

 method in the preparation of osmotic mem- 

 branes. The first results of this investigation 

 are given in an article by Morse and D. W. 

 Horn that appeared in 1901. They say: 



In this connection, it occurred to the authors 

 that if a solution of a copper salt and one of po- 

 tassium ferroeyanide are separated by a porous 

 wall which is filled with water, and a current is 

 passed from an electrode in the former to another 

 in the latter solution the copper and the ferrocy- 

 anogen ions must meet in the interior of the wall 

 and separate as copper ferroeyanide at all points 

 of meeting, so that in the end there should be 

 built up a continuous membrane well supported on 

 either side by the material of the wall. The re- 

 sults of our experiments in this direction appear 

 to have justified the expectation and to be worthy 

 of a brief preliminary notice. 



This marks the real beginning of the work 

 on osmotic pressure with which the name of 

 Morse will always be associated. But before 

 the cells were available and therefore before 

 any reliable measurements could be made, 

 years of patient, skilfull work were still nec- 

 essary. Difficulties that seemed insurmount- 

 able frequently arose and necessitated new 

 efforts. It must be said that some of us in 

 the laboratory, including myself, at times 



1 To make this story complete it should be 

 added that Morse was the "one of us" here re- 

 ferred to. A piece of glass passed through the 

 tissues of his neck in close proximity to the jugu- 

 lar vein. His escape from death was almost mi- 

 raculous. 



