June 26, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



971 



of eighty-six years, and who, though 

 absent in body, must surely at this mo- 

 ment be present with us in spirit. 



When we pause to read the record of 

 his life, or his activities in the cause of 

 chemistry here in America, we stand en- 

 tranced, as it were, and freely admit that 

 it is worthy of the highest praise and the 

 most careful, thoughtful consideration, for 

 there is scarcely a contribution that has 

 emanated from his hand which does not 

 fairly teem with suggestive thoughts. 



As a junior in Columbia College when 

 but nineteen years of age, Wolcott Gibbs 

 gave to the scientific public a new form of 

 voltaic battery in which, for the first time, 

 carbon was used as the negative electrode. 

 In his dissertation of 1845, upon a natural 

 system of chemical classification, there is 

 evinced a power of discrimination and 

 understanding of analogies in crystalline 

 form in relations of combinations and 

 types of compounds that betrays the 

 superb order of chemical intellect. 



Beginning here in your laboratory with 

 the analysis of the dust of a sirocco, there 

 followed at a close interval a series of con- 

 tributions upon analytical chemistry which 

 demonstrated his acumen in devising new 

 methods for the determination of various 

 metals as well as separating them with the 

 finest accuracy when associated in com- 

 plicated mixtures. Though simple, it was 

 "Wolcott Gibbs who showed how simple lead 

 dioxide might be or was in the separation 

 of manganese from a series of allied 

 metals, and cerium from its almost con- 

 stant associates, lanthanum and the two 

 didymiums. 



This early attention to things analyjt.ieal 

 no doubt paved the way for later con- 

 tributions upon the use of sodium thio- 

 sulphate as a reagent of separation; of 

 hypophosphorous acid as a quantitative 

 precipitant of copper, and of others too 

 numerous to mention. 



And then in 1857, in conjunction with 

 my own chief and honored predecessor, 

 Dr. Genth, there appeared the first of a 

 series of contributions upon the cobalta- 

 mines— those fascinating bodies which 

 taxed to the utmost the analytical skill of 

 both Gibbs and Genth. In their hands the 

 number of these compounds in which 

 cobalt is differently combined from what 

 it is in its ordinary salts, was greatly 

 multiplied; but the complete interpreta- 

 tion of their constitution was not given by 

 them. The solution of that problem was 

 reserved for Werner of Zurich. And here 

 at least is one instance where a discovery 

 made by Americans arrested the attention 

 of European minds to such a degree that 

 from following the studies of Werner we 

 are obliged to radically modify our long- 

 cherished views upon the doctrine of 

 valency. 



It may also be said that Gibbs remarked, 

 "very numerous and carefully made 

 analyses of the salts of the eobaltamines, 

 executed in my laboratory, indicate 59 as 

 the true atomic value of cobalt." This 

 and other published data make certain that 

 as early as 1858 your first professor of 

 chemistry was wide awake to the impor- 

 tance of the atomic numbers and to their 

 methods of determination— problems of 

 deepest interest to chemists of the present 

 time. 



There is scarcely an element that Dr. 

 Gibbs did not follow in its many combina- 

 tions. He knew them all. He knew them 

 well. 



And there in your early laboratory he 

 also carried out an exhaustive study of 

 platinum ore, patiently reviewing the 

 many suggestions made for the separation 

 of the several metals of the platinum 

 group, and then, venturing forth on his 

 own initiative to find new and better 

 processes, met with the most abundant suc- 

 cess. His research made in 1860 upon 



