Febktjaby 11, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



193 



them to you. To our minds it is hard to 

 overestimate the importance, especially to 

 a young investigator, of his doing his own 

 analytical work for himself. If we read 

 rightly, this was the almost universal habit 

 of the old masters of our science, and we 

 greatly fear that those chemists who from 

 choice delegate their analytical work to 

 others will find, after years of such delega- 

 tion, that their reward of successful inves- 

 tigations is very small. 



A single thought further. At the present 

 time so much applied chemistiy is either 

 based on analytical work, or has analyt- 

 ical work as an almost essential constit- 

 uent of its existence, that in a paper dis- 

 cussing analytical work a few words may not 

 be amiss on the relations between pure and 

 applied chemistry. "Without wishing to 

 touch in the slightest degree on mooted or 

 disputed questions, it may not be unfair to 

 say that, while the applied chemist does 

 truly, as the name indicates, in the mass of 

 his work, utilize or apply the discoveries of 

 others to useful effect, it does not at all 

 follow that in the field of applied chemistry 

 no discoveries yet remain to be made. It 

 is certainly not too much to say that no 

 thoughtful chemist has ever worked for any 

 length of time in any field of applied chem- 

 istry without finding himself surrounded 

 with problems involving new and unknown 

 reactions; with problems, am I, not safe in 

 saying, requiring for their solution as good 

 appliances, as deep study and as keen 

 thought as any that occupy the minds of 

 the pure chemists. These problems con- 

 tinually foi-ce themselves upon him, and 

 liis only regret in the matter is that the 

 time at his disposal does not permit him to 

 solve them as fast as they arise. A promi- 

 nent feature of these problems in applied 

 chemistry is worthy of close attention, viz., 

 they generally have immediate useful appli- 

 cations as soon as they are solved. The 

 applied chemist usually makes an excur- 



sion into the unknown, because some diffi- 

 cult}^ has arisen in the course of his regu- 

 lar work, or because some new, more rapid, 

 or more economical method of accomplish- 

 ing results is desired. He may succeed in 

 finding a new reaction or in utilizing an 

 old one, as the basis of a successful com- 

 mercial process, or in modifying a manu- 

 facturing method in the interests of both 

 economy and speed. But whatever his 

 work, the immediate useful apphcation of 

 the information he secures is both his 

 stimulus and guide. He may not be able, 

 from lack of time, to follow Ms work up, 

 and find the complete relations of the facts 

 ascertained to the other branches of chem- 

 istry, but this is his misfortune rather than 

 his fault, and this condition of affairs, viz. , 

 being unable to follow out to completion 

 lines of research one started on is, if we 

 understand the matter rightly, not charac- 

 teristic of the applied chemist alone. This 

 much being said, let us ask in what respects 

 the pure chemists resemble or differ from 

 those who work in the field of appUed 

 chemistry. 



They certainly are alike in this, that 

 neither of them can devote his whole time 

 to original Avork, but both must devote no 

 small portion of their energy to other lines 

 than making investigations. There may 

 have been a time in the historj^ of chemistry 

 when investigators were so fortunately situ- 

 ated that they could devote their whole 

 time and energy to finding out new truth 

 and giving their results to the world. All 

 honor to such investigators. Moreover, 

 we all know that occasionally an appropria- 

 tion of funds or an endowment is made for 

 research in some special field. But truly, 

 would it not be too much to say that the 

 work of any large percentage of the pure 

 chemists of to-day is the result of any 

 such fortunate circumstances? Further- 

 more, the pure and applied chemists are 

 alike in that in their original work both 



