742 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLII. No. 1091 



ther suggests "that heredity also is one of 

 the questions the eventual solution of which 

 we must look to the chemist to provide. ' ' 



I like the old familiar concept of the 

 human organism, not as an individual but 

 as a community, a humming, bustling hive 

 of industry, where each separate cell has 

 its own special kind of work to perform; 

 some splitting up the raw material as it is 

 received into simpler substances and classi- 

 fying these for transmission to other cells, 

 where they are built up into materials nec- 

 essary for the life and development of the 

 organism ; some cells carrying on a process 

 of benevolent assimilation, others "doing an 

 illicit stiU business"; with the great cen- 

 tral pumping station driving life and 

 energy to the remotest corners of the estab- 

 lishment. That is not only the most fasci- 

 nating organic chemical laboratory in the 

 world, and its most important chemical in- 

 dustry; but it is also the one which con- 

 •cerns us most intimately. Whether we live 

 or die within the next five minutes, depends 

 absolutely upon whether the reactions now 

 going on in all the minute organic labora- 

 tories of our bodies continue in their nor- 

 mal healthy course or suddenly go wrong. 



Chemistry has been well characterized 

 as "the intelligence department of indus- 

 try." It does not skim the cream of other 

 men's labor, but is itself so great a creator 

 of national wealth that the actual money 

 value of its services is beyond computation. 



In this brief and very superficial fashion, 

 I have endeavored to give you some idea as 

 to what chemistry means to our present-day 

 civilization. AU of these remarkable 

 achievements are but the outcome of patient 

 and painstaking research in the field of 

 pure chemistry. Investigations in pure sci- 

 ence laid those broad and deep foundations 

 upon which applied science has erected the 

 wonderful structure of modern industrial 

 operations. Small wonder, then, that the 



establishment of a chair of research in pure 

 chemistry is a cause for gratification and 

 encouragement. 



No one can tell at what instant some ob- 

 servation recorded in the course of a re- 

 search may suddenly become of immense 

 importance. When Cavendish, 130 years 

 ago, read a paper before the Royal Society 

 describing the formation of nitric acid by 

 the passing of an electric spark through air, 

 it certainly never occurred to any one pres- 

 ent that the question of the fixation of 

 atmospheric nitrogen might one day prove 

 the means of saving the human race from 

 starvation, and yet such may turn out to be 

 the case in the years to come. Perkin had 

 no intimation that the experiments con- 

 ducted during the Easter vacation of 1856, 

 in the effort to obtain quinine synthetically, 

 would result in a billion dollar world in- 

 dustry in coal tar dyestuffs; nor could 

 Bessemer have foreseen that his process 

 would one day save the world over two 

 billion dollars annually. 



The nineteenth century has been de- 

 scribed as the Age of Physics and Engineer- 

 ing, since it witnessed such triumphs as the 

 development of steam and gas engines, and 

 the utilization of electricity as a source of 

 light, heat and power, and as a means of 

 communication. The twentieth century 

 will quite certainly be an Age of Chemis- 

 try. Germany realized this some years ago, 

 with results that are now evident to all. 



If we would not be left far behind in the 

 race, we must pursue a similar course, and 

 that at once. We have yet to convince 

 many of the nations of the earth that the 

 form of government in which we believe, 

 and to establish which our ancestors died, 

 is the best not only for the freedom and 

 happiness of the individual, and the devel- 

 opment of the noblest intellectual and moral 

 standards, but also for the growth of the 

 country in physical strength and resource- 



