474 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXV. No. 638 



the embodiment of Davy's adage, ' It is the 

 duty of the chemist to be bold in pursuit.' 



Ahnost his last words as he left this city in 

 1904 was the terse sentence, ' Chemistry is still 

 an experimental science.' 



Moissan was born in Paris, September 28, 

 1862. He completed his education at an early 

 age, his professional work being guided by 

 Berthelot and Deherain. He was chief of 

 laboratory at the Ecole de Pharmacia in 18Y9. 

 He attained his doctorate in science in 1885, 

 presenting a remarkable thesis on the ' Serie 

 du Cyanogene.' This secured him the ap- 

 pointment of professor of toxicology at the 

 school of pharmacy. He was elected a mem- 

 ber of the Academy of Medicine, Section of 

 Pharmacy in 1888, and made a member of the 

 Academy of Sciences, replacing Cahours, in 

 1891. He was decorated with the Legion of 

 Honor in 1886. 



His earlier researches on the ' Oxides of 

 Iron,' 1877, on ' Chromium and its Com- 

 pounds,' in 1882, and on the 'Fluoride of 

 Arsenic,' 1884, gradually led to his notable dis- 

 covery of a method of isolating fluorine, in 

 1886. 



His indefatigable pursuit of a problem is 

 typically exemplified in a remark in his mono- 

 graph on ' Fluorine and its Compounds ' : 

 " And so after three years of research, I got to 

 the first important experiment in the isola- 

 tion of fluorine." 



Another instance of his indomitable per- 

 sistence will be remembered by some who were 

 fortunate enough to hear his brilliant lecture, 

 delivered at the College of Physicians and 

 Surgeons, in 1896, when at the invitation of 

 the New York Academy of Sciences, the 

 A m erican Chemical Society, the American In- 

 stitute of Electrical Engineers, and the Col- 

 lege of Pharmacy, he demonstrated the use of 

 his electric furnace and showed his method 

 of making diamonds. As he removed the 

 glowing crucible from within the furnace and 

 plunged it into a mass of water, some of his 

 audience, all scientists, involuntarily moved 

 as if expecting an explosion " Have no fear," 

 said he, "I have performed this experiment 

 without accident over three hundred times." 



In friendly appreciation of the honors done 



him on that visit to the United States, he 

 sent to the National Museum a collection of 

 sixteen specimens of the products he had ob- 

 tained by the use of this new instrument of 

 research. The bottles were neatly closed with 

 parchment and on each he had placed his 

 signature. This collection will now be a 

 unique record of his genius. During the 

 same visit Moissan lectured at the Chicago 

 University, and attended the sesqui-centennial 

 celebration at Princeton. He made a study of 

 our educational institutions and on his return 

 wrote a report in which he dilated on the 

 advantages our country was deriving from the 

 liberality of her citizens towards the institu- 

 tions of learning, and he exerted all his in- 

 fluence, which constantly increased, to bring 

 about the same state of affairs in France, 

 where because of the university belonging to 

 the state, endowments were rarely forthcom- 

 ing. 



In 1889 he published some new researches 

 on the ' Isolation of Fluorine,' and in 1890 he- 

 wrote on the 'Fluoride of Carbon.' He re- 

 ceived the ' Prix Lacaze ' in 1887. 



His work on the fluoride of carbon led to 

 his undertaking a study of all three forms of 

 carbon, amorphous, graphite and diamond^ 

 and it was with the object of subjecting car- 

 bon to excessively high temperatures that he 

 devised his electric furnace, a simple yet all- 

 powerful instrument. With it he undertook a 

 long series of researches on the elements and 

 some of their compounds, the story of which 

 would not only take us through many a 

 chapter of science but also unfold the begin- 

 nings of a new art in chemistry. Later, 

 together with Dewar, he liquifled fluorine and. 

 showed how it would combine spontaneously 

 with hydrogen, thus establishing, at least so 

 far, the lowest temperature at which chemical 

 union takes place. With his electric furnacfr 

 he has demonstrated not only the inde- 

 structibility of many of the elements by the 

 highest heat yet attained, for in a brilliant 

 discourse given at Rome in 1906, at the Inter- 

 national Congress of Applied Chemistry, he- 

 detailed his distillation of gold, the platinum 

 metals, chromium, iron, nickel, manganese,, 

 tungsten, molybdenum and uranium, and be-^ 



