June 26, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



977 



is a changing system, that it is an aggre- 

 gate of much smaller particles called cor- 

 puscles or electrons. This carries with it 

 the thought that it may be possible to 

 change one of the so-called elementary 

 forms of matter into another, and some 

 observations have already been recorded 

 that seem to show that this possibility can 

 in fact be realized. Sir William Eamsay 

 has shown that, in the course of the de- 

 composition which radium naturally under- 

 goes, one of the products is another ele- 

 ment, helium, and, further, it appears that, 

 by allowing the emanation from radium to 

 act upon copper, he has obtained a minute 

 quantity of the element lithium. These 

 observations have interested the chemical 

 world profoundly. "We are anxiously 

 awaiting confirmation and further devel- 

 opments. 



It has been suggested that, because some, 

 and perhaps all, atoms are changing, the 

 atomic theory, which for a century has 

 been the principal theory of chemistry, is 

 no longer tenable, that we must revise our 

 entire terminology. It is hardly necessary 

 to say to this audience that this is an 

 extreme view. The atomic theory is as use- 

 ful as it ever was. Under the conditions 

 which surround us on the earth most atoms 

 do not undergo change that can be discov- 

 ered in any ordinary way. The atomic the- 

 ory is based upon innumerable weighings. 

 Now, the changes in weight which atoms 

 undergo are not such as can be detected, 

 so that we have as much evidence in favor 

 of the atomic theory as we ever had, though 

 we must supplement it by the conception 

 of corpuscles or particles much smaller 

 than atoms which can be given off from 

 the atoms. 



"While chemistry is making rapid ad- 

 vances the great mass of knowledge of 

 chemical phenomena that has been collected 

 needs study now as in the past. No dis- 

 coveries wiU ever make it possible to ignore 



oxygen and hydrogen and the other chem- 

 ical elements and the compounds which 

 they form with one another. I fear, how- 

 ever, that in our zeal for the new, we do 

 not always give as much attention to the 

 old as it deserves. I know that to talk in 

 this way is furnishing evidence of my ad- 

 vancing years, yet, even at the risk of this, 

 I wish to leave with you the thought that 

 the new is built upon the old and includes 

 the old. Chemistry was a great science 

 fifty years ago. It is a greater science in 

 the year 1908. 



The presiding officer then said: 

 Fifty years is a long time. President 

 Remsen has depicted the many and rapid 

 changes that have come about in our sci- 

 ence during that period. In 1852 Robert 

 Ogden Doremus assumed the professorship 

 of natural history in this college. Two 

 years previous to this, while connected 

 with the New York Medical School, he 

 opened the first chemical laboratory for 

 medical students in this country. The 

 students of the College of Pharmacy, then 

 without a home of its own, were allowed 

 similar advantages in that laboratory. He 

 soon extended this method of instruction 

 to the Bellevue and Long Island Hospital 

 Medical Colleges. 



"With a member of the faculty, who had 

 already demonstrated unique activity in 

 teaching chemistry, it was the natural and 

 only thing to do, when Gibbs was called to 

 the Rumford Professorship at Harvard in 

 1863, to ask Professor Doremus to transfer 

 his activity to the chair of chemistry. 



Then in unveiling the portrait of the 

 late Professor R. Ogden Doremus, Pro- 

 fessor Baskerville said: 



This ardent devotee of science, this im- 

 pressive teacher, this lover of art, poetry 

 and all learning, occupied the chair for 

 forty years, retiring in 1903. 



