Mat 7, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



721 



compounds have been developed in great 

 detail and have led us to so many happy 

 conclusions which the facts have verified 

 as to justify our belief that these ideas 

 must rest upon a substantial basis of truth. 

 This sometimes leads us to forget that the 

 graphic formulas which we build up and 

 write on a plane surface are an attempt to 

 represent in terms of two dimensions 

 actualities which exist in three. More- 

 over, these formulas depict the molecule 

 as something fixed and rigid, although 

 everything tells us that the atoms within 

 the molecule are in rapid and ceaseless 

 motion. A new chemistry will dawn when 

 we take proper cognizance of these mo- 

 tions and their influence upon the proper- 

 ties and relations of the compound. "We 

 state molecular weights with a finality of 

 assurance, forgetting that we know very 

 little of the molecular weights of liquids 

 and nothing of the molecular weights of 

 solids. We write cellulose as (C|5Hio05)n 

 but the unknown n is probably the most 

 significant part of the entire formula. 



Sulphur passes before our eyes from the 

 crystalline to the amorphous variety, phos- 

 phorus assumes the red or yellow form, 

 and an almost complete change of proper- 

 ties attends the transformation. Carbon 

 exists in several markedly different states, 

 and yet as to the meaning and mechanism 

 of these molecular changes we remain in 

 complete ignorance. Fortunately for the 

 comfort or even the very fact of our ex- 

 istence upon the planet, water is denser at 

 4° than it is at zero. Had it not been so; 

 our lakes and oceans would be simply so 

 many solid ice masses upon which the 

 summer sun could make only a superficial 

 impression, but, in spite of the paramount' 

 importance of the fact itself no one of us 

 can say why the water molecule presents 

 this curious anomaly. "We write the water 

 molecule as HjO and commonly regard it 

 as a relatively simple compound. How 



then shall we account for the fact that the 

 dielectric constant or specific inductive 

 capacity of water is about fifty times that 

 of air, or perhaps ten times that of glass. 

 As the dielectric constant is in a sense a 

 direct measure of the massiveness of the 

 molecule, are we not forced to the conclu- 

 sion that the water molecule really is built 

 up of many of these H2O groups? How 

 else, indeed, shall we explain the power of 

 water to knock asunder the molecules of 

 electrolytes which it dissolves, and does not 

 this complexity of the water molecule bear 

 some relation to the essential part which 

 water plays in the ultimate phenomena of 

 living matter? 



And this brings me to the main point of 

 my thesis. A great German chemical 

 company tells us in an attractive book just 

 issued that it employs 218 chemists, 142 

 civil engineers, 918 officials, and nearly 

 8,000 workmen. It covers an area of 220 

 hectares, has 386 steam engines, 472 elec- 

 tric motors, and 411 telephone substations. 

 Its plant represents the highest develop- 

 ment which industrial chemistry has 

 reached, but, none the less it can not pro- 

 duce an ounce of starch which a potato 

 growing in the ground fabricates from 

 water and carbonic acid gas under the in- 

 fluence of sunshine. 



True it is that this great aggregation of 

 engines and dynamos, furnaces, retorts 

 and stUls, can, under the direction of its 

 highly trained and specialized chemical 

 staff, produce certain natural products in 

 condition so available and pure as to even 

 improve upon nature, but by what mon- 

 strous effort is it accomplished? In the 

 spring the tender grass and the delicate 

 unfolding leaves cover the whole earth 

 with the green of chlorophyll. There is 

 no noise, no smoke, no stench. The grass 

 is cool and grateful to the touch, and clean. 

 In similar manner vegetation everywhere 

 is fabricating cellulose to the extent of sev- 



