78 MARTIN 



ever he went he was the same, — the genial and warm-hearted 

 friend, the gentleman, the scholar, the scientist, the litterateur ; 

 his mind was ever on the alert to discern and to investigate 

 novel and peculiar points of interest that others failed to ob- 

 serve, or to hear the forgotten voices of early workers from the 

 morning twiHght of science, that are now lost to common ears 

 in the noise of the modern '' gairish day." No ordinary man, 

 no ordinary chemist, could ever have done his work. Some 

 have indeed said that he failed to do what he might have ac- 

 complished had he given himself more closely to original in- 

 vestigation, and confined his activities within a more limited 

 range of study. This may be true, in a sense, but only in a 

 narrow sense. There are many men capable of original in- 

 vestigation, who could never attain, either by natural qualities 

 or by acquired experience, to the breadth and scope of Dr. 

 Bolton, or to the work which he accomplished. 



He was imbued, as I have said, with the historic sense in an 

 unusual degree ; and this made him especially an historical 

 chemist and a chemical historian. He loved to recall the 

 labors of the pioneers in science, and to recognize their part — 

 crude as it may seem to us now — in the development that has 

 followed. As early as 1876, in an article in the ''American 

 Chemist," he expressed the key-note of much of his subsequent 

 work in the following words : "So rapid are the strides made 

 by science in this progressive age, and so boundless is its range, 

 that those who view its career from without find great difficulty 

 in following its diverse and intricate pathways, while those who 

 have secured a footing within the same road are often quite 

 unable to keep pace with its fleet movements and would fain 

 retire from the unequal contest. It is not surprising, then, that 

 those actually contributing to the advancement of science, press- 

 ing eagerly upward and onward, should neglect to look back 

 upon the labors of those who precede them and should some- 

 times lose sight of the obligations which science owes to for- 

 gotten generations." But it was not only either from, or for, 

 the historic interest purely, or mainly, that Dr. Bolton began 

 his great work of chemical indexing and bibliography. He felt 



