254 Wolcott Gibbs. 



form of galvanic battery, in which carbon was used for the 

 first time as the inactive plate. Upon receiving his degree of 

 A.B. in 1841 he began his chemical education by taking a 

 place as assistant with Dr. Robert Hare, professor of chemis- 

 try in xhe Medical School of the University of Pennsylvania. 

 His long life, therefore, linked one of onr earliest chemists 

 with those of the present generation. After some months in 

 this laboratory he entered the College of Physicians and Sur- 

 geons of New York with the intention of qualifying himself 

 to hold the chair of chemistry in a medical school. It is cer- 

 tainly remarkable that at this early day he should have been 

 able to work out so well-conceived a plan for chemical study ; 

 which he continued, after taking the degree of M.D. in 1845 

 and incidentally the A.M. in 1844, by going to Europe, where 

 he entered the laboratory of Pammelsberg at Berlin. Some 

 months here were followed by a year under Heinrich Pose, 

 also in Berlin, a semester in Giessen with Liebig, and courses 

 of lectures in Paris from Laurent Dumas and Pegnault. Of 

 this brilliant constellation of teachers, Heinrich Pose had by 

 far the most influence on him, as is shown by his lifelong 

 devotion to inorganic and analytical chemistry in spite of the 

 fascinations of organic chemistry under Liebig and physical 

 chemistry under Pegnault. He always spoke of Pose with 

 the greatest admiration and affection, and evidently regarded 

 him as his chemical father. 



In 1848 he returned to New York, and, after giving a short 

 course of lectures at Delaware College, Newark, was elected in 

 1849 professor of chemistry and physics in the newly created 

 Free Academy now called the College of the City of New 

 York. For the next eight years there is little to record except 

 his marriage to Josephine Mauran in 1853, and the fact that 

 in 1851 he began a series of reports on chemical and physical 

 progress for this Journal as associate editor, continued till 18Y3, 

 which form 500 pages of succinct but clear and comprehensive 

 abstracts of the most important papers of this period. He also 

 carried on a similar work for American chemistry as corre- 

 spondent of the German Chemical Society from 1869-1877. 

 Until 1857 his papers, few in number and of no great import- 

 ance, only show he was. finding his feet, but in that year 



