May 1, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



675 



ical industry between the United States 

 and Germany alone in 1913 provided 5 per 

 cent, of our total foreign business and 13.8 

 per cent, of our balance of trade for that 

 year. Please bear in mind tbat I am not 

 by any means attempting to claim all the 

 credit for this for the chemist; all that 

 I ask is that his claims to recognition for 

 intelligent, active and effective collabora- 

 tion in bringing about those stupendous re- 

 sults be not thrown aside as worthless and 

 that he shall not be made the target of un- 

 just criticism because in 1914 there was a 

 shortage of about $600,000 or 7 per cent, 

 in coal-tar dyes and because cotton dropped 

 from 15 cents to 6 cents. 



Much more could be said of the chemist 

 and his contribution to the effective every 

 day labor of this work-a-day world but time 

 and space forbid. I am sure that this short 

 sketch of the chemist 's activities, his hopes, 

 his aims and his work will serve to create 

 a wider interest in him and will result in 

 according to him the credit to which he is 

 entitled, namely, that he pulls more than 

 his own weight in our nation's boat. 



Beenhard C. Hesse 



THE GBAT HEBBABWM 

 The rebuilding of the Gray Herbarium, 

 •which has been in progress for some years, 

 has just been finished by the completion of the 

 main central section of the building. The 

 original structure, the gift of Nathaniel 

 Thayer in 1864 — at which date Dr. Asa Gray 

 gave his invaluable botanical collections to 

 Harvard University — was a brick building and 

 for its time substantial, but the entire inte- 

 rior finish, including the floors, the plant 

 cases, book shelving, etc., was of wood. The 

 building had become wholly inadequate for the 

 growing collections and was far from being 

 fireproof in any modern sense. 



The complete rebuilding and considerable 

 enlargement was begun in 1909 and has been 

 carried out a section at a time. It has been ef- 

 fected through the generosity of members of the 



visiting committee. The initial step consisted 

 in the erection of a substantial ell, known as 

 the Kidder wing, the gift of Mr. Nathaniel T. . 

 Kidder, of Harvard, '82. This wing, com- 

 pleted in 1910, provided convenient shelving 

 space in exceptionally secure cases for more 

 than 300,000 sheets of herbarium specimens as 

 well as a portion of the library, thus giving 

 great relief from the congestion of the older 

 building. 



In 1910 the adjacent residence, formerly 

 occupied by Dr. Gray, was moved to the oppo- 

 site side of Garden Street, and in its place 

 was built in 1911 the Library wing of the 

 herbarium. This portion of the building, fur- 

 nishing ample quarters for the convenient 

 shelving of the library, with extensive provi- 

 sion for its growth, was given anonymously and 

 was completed in 1912. Last year, however, 

 the donor, Dr. George Golding Kennedy of 

 the Harvard class of '64, kindly consented that 

 his name might be announced in connection 

 with the fiftieth aniversary of the graduation 

 of his class. 



This wing contains, besides the library, the 

 private offices of the curator. Professor B. L. 

 Eobiason, and the librarian. Miss Mary A. 

 Day, a room for maps, files and publications, 

 and, in the basement, a press-room for the 

 drying and preparation of specimens, a photo- 

 graphic dark-room, a staff-room and store 

 room. 



At the same time, the old and wholly inade- 

 quate laboratory and auditorium, which had 

 formed the opposite wing of the earlier struc- 

 ture and had been built in 18Y1 by the gift of 

 Horatio HoUis Hunnewell, were taken down 

 and replaced by the George Robert White 

 Laboratories of Systematic Botany, a wing of 

 much greater capacity, well arranged, well 

 lighted and provided with complete and highly 

 perfected equipment for its purposes. This 

 wing, the gift of Mr. George Eobert White, 

 of Boston, contains on the ground floor two 

 laboratories, one used by the Harvard stu- 

 dents in systematic botany, the other by the 

 Eadcliffe students. On the second floor, there 

 is an instrument room, a " bundle-room " for 

 the safe storage of collections awaiting study, 



