36 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 340. 



his botanical attainments to material account, 

 he obtained, through the influence of his friend. 

 Sir Joseph Banks, with George III., the chair of 

 regius professor of botany in this university. 

 It was a bold venture for him to undertake so 

 responsible an office, for he had never lectured, 

 or even attended a course of lectures, and in 

 Glasgow, as in all other universities in the king- 

 dom-, the botanical chair was, and had always 

 been, held by a graduate in medicine. Owing 

 to these disqualifications his appointment was 

 naturally unfavorably viewed by the medical 

 faculty of the University. But he had resources 

 that enabled him to overcome all obstacles — 

 familiarity with his subject, devotion to its 

 study, energy, eloquence, a commanding pi-es- 

 ence, with urbanity of manners, and, above all, 

 the art of making the student love the science 

 he taught. After 20 years of the professorship 

 his father retired and undertook the director- 

 ship of the Royal Gardens, Kew. Since that 

 period great changes had been introduced in 

 the method of botanical teaching in all our uni- 

 versities, due, on the one hand, to a vastly ad- 

 vanced comprehension of the structure of plants 

 and of the functions of their organs, and, on 

 the other, to a recognition of the fact that the 

 study of the animal and vegetable kingdoms 

 could not be considered apart. Furthermore, 

 chemistry, physics, and greatly improved 

 microscopes were now necessary for the elu- 

 cidation of the elementary problems of plant 

 life. The addition of the building in which 

 they were assembled was evidence of the 

 resolve that botany should not fall from its 

 well-earned position. The botanical laboratory 

 would prove an invaluable aid to research 

 under the tegis of its distinguished director, 

 and in that belief he now declared it open. 



THE HARVARD CHEMICAL LABORATORY. 



Professor T. W. Eichards writes in the last 

 number of the Harvard Graduate Magazine in 

 regard to research work, as follows : 



"Original investigation, which has added so 

 much to the intellectual life of the Laboratory, 

 continues with unabated vigor. In the last 

 five years about seventy papers have been pub- 

 lished by the officers and students in Boylston 

 Hall. These covered a wide range of subjects. 



about half of them concerning organic chemis- 

 try, and the other half physical and inorganic 

 chemistry. Professor Jackson's extended re- 

 searches upon the structure of aromatic sub- 

 stances have yielded in the hands of many 

 students a large number of interesting new 

 compounds and the basis for further generali- 

 zation upon the mechanism of chemical action. 

 Professor Hill's precise and detailed study of 

 pyromucic acid has now in part given place to 

 an extremely interesting series of syntheses of 

 the benzol ring. In physical chemistry several 

 comprehensive papers on chemical thermody- 

 namics have appeared, and various phenomena 

 were studied in the Laboratory by both instruc- 

 tors and students. For example, the passage 

 of electricity through gases received attention ; 

 modern theory of dissociation was studied in 

 its relation to the sense of taste ; anew basis for 

 thermometric standardization has been found ; 

 and the fundamental Law of Faraday has been 

 subjected to a verification more rigorous than 

 ever before. The study of the law of definite 

 proportions, the one other chemical law which 

 seems to rank with Faraday's in unfailing pre- 

 cision, has been steadily continued. In the 

 last ten years the atomic weights of copper, 

 barium, strontium, calcium, zinc, magnesium, 

 cobalt, nickel, uranium and caesium have all 

 been studied with a care which seems to carry 

 conviction with it. This work has all been 

 handicapped by the inadequate quarters in 

 which it had to be performed, and we now 

 have to face the bitter alternative of being 

 obliged either to turn away graduate students, 

 or else so to crowd them together as to make 

 accurate investigation almost impossible." 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 

 Harvard University has conferred the 

 LL D. degree on Dr. H. S. Pritchett, president 

 of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ; 

 on Professor J. H.Van'tHoflP, professor of phys- 

 ical chemistry at the Universitj'- of Berlin, and 

 on Professor C. S. Sargent, director of the Arnold 

 Arboretum. The honorary M. A. was oonferred 

 on Dr. Hugo Miinsterberg, professor of psy- 

 chology, and on Dr. Theobald Smith, professor 

 of comparative pathology. In conferring these 

 last degrees. President Eliot referred to the 



