Janitaey 22, 1897.] 



SCIENCE. 



123 



to last for a year or two and then perish 

 for lack of proper support. They were 

 local experiments, nothing more ; and no list 

 of them could be made. In the more gen- 

 eral societies, like the American Academy 

 in Boston and the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences in Philadelphia, the chemists had 

 a part, but it was one of minor importance — 

 an item among many. 



In the American Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science there were some 

 chemists who attended the meetings from 

 time to time, and occasionally presented 

 papers. They were overshadowed, how- 

 ever, by the more active representatives of 

 other sciences, and their share in the pro- 

 ceedings was rarely conspicuous. The As- 

 sociation was divided, at the time of which 

 I speak, into two sections — A and B, and in 

 the jSirst of these chemistry, physics, mathe- 

 matics and astronomy were crowded to- 

 gether, with chemistry the least prominent 

 of all. 



In 1873 the Association met at Portland; 

 and a handful of chemists, most of them 

 young and unknown, but enthusiastic, were 

 present. The time was ripe for a step for- 

 ward, and that step, a very short one, was 

 taken. The Association was requested to 

 allow the formation of a sub-section of 

 chemistry; a year later, at Hartford, the 

 request was granted, and the sub-section 

 began its career. 



Some two weeks before the meeting at 

 Hartford, on August 1, 1874, about seventy- 

 five chemists met at Northumberland, in 

 Pennsylvania, to celebrate, at the grave of 

 Priestley, the centennial of the discovery 

 of oxygen. It was now proposed to or- 

 ganize an American Chemical Society, 

 modelled after the already flourishing so- 

 -cieties of London, Paris and Berlin ; but 

 action was deferred, in order that the new 

 experiment in the American Association 

 might have a fair trial, and that the danger 

 of undue competition, with its attendant 



division of forces, might be*avoided. The 

 new sub-section received general support, 

 it grew and flourished ; and when, iu 1881, 

 the American Association was reorganized, 

 it became the full Section C of the present 

 body. To-day the chemical section is one 

 of the strongest and most vigorous in the 

 Association, with a large and faithful mem- 

 bership which has been built up in great 

 measure by the efforts of the men who 

 started it twenty-three years ago. 



In 1876 the project for an American 

 Chemical Society was revived, and an or- 

 ganization bearing that name was estab- 

 lished in New York. It obtained a fair 

 membership and published a journal ; but 

 as all the meetings were held in one city it 

 did not command the support of the country 

 at large, and it became essentially a local 

 body in spite of its claims to national scope. 

 It was national in theory, and also in pur- 

 pose, but it failed to receive general recog- 

 nition ; and it exerted no wide-spread in- 

 fluence until, after sixteen years of existence, 

 it became a potent factor in the development 

 of a larger enterprise. 



In 1884 the Chemical Society of Wash- 

 inton was formed. This was professedly 

 local in its character, and so too were sev- 

 eral other bodies of chemists which were 

 organized within a year or two of this time. 

 There was no concentration of effort among 

 the chemists of America, except in the 

 American Association, and that, unfortu- 

 nately, met but once a year. There were 

 nuclei enough, however, for crystallization 

 to begin, and in 1888 another step was 

 taken. The chemical section of the Amer- 

 ican Association appointed a committee to 

 confer with like committees from other so- 

 cieties, and to report upon the question of 

 a national organization. Conference after 

 conference was held ; report after report 

 was presented ; there was opposition, of 

 course, from various quarters, and indiffer- 

 ence to be overcome ; there were conflicts 



