November 8, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



625 



community. A high standard has here 

 been established and it will be maintained. 

 What more need I say than that we wel- 

 come you to our ranks, pledge you our aid 

 and urge you to improve every opportunity 

 offered you for gaining knowledge of the 

 profession to which you have devoted your 

 lives. May this day be an auspicious one 

 to you all, full of encouragement to those 

 who return after a season of rest to the 

 prosecution of their studies, and presaging 

 success to those who, with honest purpose 

 and entire devotion claim entrance to the 

 ranks. On behalf of the faculty I greet 

 you once again and bid you cordial wel- 

 come t» this place. 



Willis G. Tucker 

 Albany Medical College 



AMERICAN CHEMICAL RESEARCH^ 

 It is no disparagement to say that there 

 are few chemists whose research work, at 

 any given time, is of vivid interest to all 

 classes of their chemical colleagues. To 

 address an assembly of this kind on the 

 experimental results of another man, to 

 which results one has nothing of one's own 

 to contribute, is to lay oneself open to a 

 cross-fire — one part of the audience will ask 

 why the speaker did not select a subject of 

 which he had an adequate knowledge, 

 whereas the other part will enquire why he 

 did not deal with something that was really 

 interesting. I have protected myself 

 against both lines of attack by choosing a 

 very large topic. I am confident that, in- 

 trinsically, it is interesting to each of us, 

 because we all read our own papers and 

 occasionally the publications of our friends, 

 especially if we believe them to be erro- 

 neous, or think that they are going to inter- 

 fere with our particular results ! 



During the past three years I have 



' Address delivered before the American Chem- 

 ical Society at the Toronto meeting, June 28, 

 1907. 



had the sole active charge of the 

 American Chemical Journal, and I pro- 

 pose to take its history as the basis 

 of my remarks. I select it simply be- 

 cause of my familiarity with it; the sub- 

 ject could be equally well illustrated by 

 our own Journal and, so far as its age per- 

 mits, by the Journal of Physical Chem- 

 istry. The first number of the American 

 Chemical Journal is dated April, 1879. 

 Volume 1 (1879-80) contains 460 pages. 

 Volumes 10 and 20 (1898) comprise 472 

 and 890 pages, respectively. After that 

 year two volumes were issued annually, the 

 last one, number 37 (January to June, 

 1907), includes about 650 pages. To put 

 it in another way, at the end of ten years 

 the quantity of published matter per an- 

 num was the same as at the end of the first 

 year; at the end of the twentieth year it 

 had doubled, and eight years later it was 

 three times greater than during the tenth 

 year. An inspection of the earlier vol- 

 umes suggests many reflections concerning 

 the almost complete change which has 

 taken place in the names of contributors 

 during the past twenty-eight years. I shall 

 not indulge in these beyond saying that 

 death accounts for only a few of them. I 

 feel sure, however, that you would not wish 

 me to pass in silence over the fact that of 

 the earlier contributors, practically only 

 three, Professors Arthur Michael, H. N. 

 Morse and W. A. Noyes, continue to con- 

 tribute, at the present time, as success- 

 fully and copiously as ever to the extension 

 of scientific knowledge. 



Returning now to the consideration of the 

 enormous increase of published matter, es- 

 pecially during the past fifteen years, the 

 question arises, To what is it due? Un- 

 doubtedly the amount of scientific research 

 carried out in this country is greater, 

 both relatively and absolutely, and a com- 

 parison of the papers published in Ameri- 

 can chemical journals with those appearing 



