OCTOBEK 9, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



507 



ments could readily be made by the Ameri- 

 can and British Associations in 1797, and 

 the final arrangements by the British and 

 French Associations in 1899. 



ADDRESS BEFORE SECTION B OF THE AMERI- 

 CAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCE- 

 MENT OF SCIENCE BY THE VICE- 

 PRESIDENT. 



The selection of a subject for presenta- 

 tion in an address such as I am called upon 

 to deliver to-day, seems difficult. A large 

 proportion of those who may listen to me 

 to-day are workers in the same field which 

 interests me and are familiar with the 

 progress in the science of physics. It is, 

 therefore, unlikely that I shall be able to 

 present to you anything which may be new 

 or startling ; this I regret, for it seems that 

 it requires something of this character to 

 stimulate interest and research. 



The aim of science in its most general 

 sense, is the discovery of truths. Its prog- 

 ress may be expressed by a curve approach- 

 ing truth asymptotically, probably never 

 in human experience approaching to its 

 complete knowledge. So long as investiga- 

 tors find that they are working upon the 

 steep part of the curve where it approaches 

 truth rapidly, there is no lack of interest ; 

 this, however, seems to die out quickly 

 when much labor and great patience are 

 required to extend experimentally the curve 

 now more slowly approaching complete 

 knowledge, or straighten out some of its 

 irregularities. As soon as a startlingly new 

 or curious line of investigation is suggested 

 every one pounces upon it and older prob- 

 lems are left far from completion. That 

 we in America are especially inclined to 

 this weakness in physical investigations I 

 believe to be the case. Though investiga- 

 tions have been carried out by a number of 

 American physicists, well-nigh to comple- 

 tion, involving years of painstaking labor, 

 of which we may well be proud, yet I be- 



lieve the tendency exists. It is this thought 

 which has led me to select for a brief re- 

 view a line of study patiently carried on in 

 Europe for a number of years, yet hardly 

 touched upon by physicists in this country. 

 In the last few years the studies in elec- 

 trolysis and solution have been so fruitful 

 that we can no longer afford to neglect 

 them. It is also remarkable that these 

 studies in electrolysis and molecular phys- 

 ics have been made almost exclusively by 

 chemists, though of equal, if not greater, 

 interest to the physicists; the problem 

 should be attacked by them. To direct 

 your attention then to some of the impor- 

 tant work that should be undertaken by 

 physicists is my object in reviewing, in the 

 briefest possible manner, the progress of 

 studies in electrolysis from their beginning 

 to the present time. 



Scarce one hundred years have passed 

 since the first note of chemical action hav- 

 ing been produced by electricity is to be 

 found. About the middle of the 18th cen- 

 tury Pater Beccari obtained metals from 

 oxides between which electric sparks had 

 passed. These results led to no further 

 inquiry at the time, and were passed by 

 almost unnoticed. Priestley, in 1778, criti- 

 cally studied the effect of the passage of the 

 spark through air, noting the production of 

 an acid gas. Cavendish continued these 

 researches, explaining the action in the 

 sense of the Phlogistic Theory of the day. 

 Van Marum, extending Cavendish's investi- 

 gations, decomposed ammonia, and through 

 a careful study of the chemical changes 

 brought about by the electric spark became 

 converted from Stahl's Phlogiston Theory, 

 stoutly maintained at the time, to Lavoi- 

 sier's Oxygen Theory. Van Troest and 

 Dieman, in 1739, gave the first unmistak- 

 able evidence of electrolytic action in de- 

 composing water by means of the spark. 

 The tendency towards an Electrical Theory 

 of chemical action, fully developed later, 



