596 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 879 



the erection of the new institute and will also 

 give thirty-five thousand Marks annually for 

 its maintenance during a period of ten years. 

 The Prussian government has provided the 

 site which is situated at the terminus of the 

 new underground railway from the center of 

 Berlin to Dahlem, and has endowed the insti- 

 tute with the sum of fifty thousand Marks 

 annually. 



The institute will be controlled by a board 

 consisting of two representatives of the Ger- 

 man government, two representatives of the 

 Koppel-Stiftung and the director of the insti- 

 tute. The director has an absolutely free 

 hand in the choice of his work, his fellow 

 workers and his assistants. For the admis- 

 sion of investigators who wish to follow their 

 own lines of investigation in the institute with 

 their own means, the director must have the 

 assent of the board of control. 



The institute will consist of scientific and 

 technical departments in separate buildings. 

 The building of the scientific department is 

 600 square meters in ground area, and has a 

 basement entirely underground, containing 

 constant temperature rooms. On the ground 

 floor are the professor's laboratory and con- 

 sulting room, the offices, the calibrating room 

 in which are to be kept the necessary labora- 

 tory standards, the mechanic's workshop and 

 a lecture theater to seat twenty-five persons. 

 Further lecture rooms are not provided in the 

 building as teaching in the ordinary sense is not 

 contemplated in the institute. The first floor 

 will be devoted to the library, chief assistant's 

 room, glass blowing room and a laboratory for 

 eight research men. On the second floor are 

 the living rooms for the mechanic and his 

 family, since the mechanic also acts as care- 

 taker. This floor also contains rooms for 

 photo-chemistry, for scientific collections and 

 work places for several more research workers. 



The building is connected by a corridor with 

 the technical department, whose most impor- 

 tant feature is the machinery hall with a floor 

 space of two hundred square meters. This 

 hall is surrounded by smaller rooms for chem- 

 ical preparations, high voltage and heavy cur- 

 rent work and a blacksmith shop. The ground 



floor of the technical building contains a con- 

 sultation room and the laboratory of the as- 

 sistant in charge of that department. On the 

 first floor are the living accommodations for 

 two assistants and an engine-man and also a 

 room for the serving of refreshments. 



The director's house will be erected in the 

 grounds of the institute. 



Although there exists no stipulation on the 

 point, it may be tahen as a rule that, on ac- 

 count of the fact that no teaching as such is 

 to he undertaken, only such students will he 

 admitted hy the director as have already fin- 

 ished their normal university course and de- 

 sire a wider experience in scientific research. 

 This will mean that students who come di- 

 rectly from American universities should have 

 the degree of doctor of philosophy in chem- 

 istry, or physics, or an equivalent training. 

 There are no restrictions whatever as to the 

 nationality of the men admitted by the di- 

 rector. 



The director of the institute. Professor 

 Haber, was born in Breslau in 1868, and ob- 

 tained his Ph.D. in Berlin in 1891. After 

 obtaining his degree he spent several years, 

 partly in technical work and partly in securing 

 further scientific training. In 1894 he went 

 to Karlsruhe and was appointed privat-dozent 

 in chemical technology in 1896 and ausser- 

 ordentlicher professor in 1898. In 1902 he 

 was sent to America by the Bunsen Society of 

 Applied Physical Chemistry to study the sys- 

 tem of chemical instruction and the condition 

 of electrochemical industries in the United 

 States. In 1906 he was appointed to the post 

 of ordentlicher professor in physical and elec- 

 trochemistry in Karlsruhe, where he built up 

 the best equipped research laboratory of phys- 

 ical chemistry in the world. Students from 

 all parts of the world were attracted to this 

 laboratory to such an extent that its accom- 

 modations were insufficient to allow all of 

 them to enter, even although Professor Haber 

 admitted as many as forty men at one time as 

 research workers. What was most remarkable 

 was that he personally directed the work of all 

 of these men, and often aided them in their 

 experimental work. In 1907 he was called to 



