R. J. Harvey Gibson. 
l 9 l 
PIONEER INVESTIGATORS OF PHOTOSYNTHESIS. 1 
By R. J. Harvey Gibson. 
Professor of Botany in the University of Liverpool. 
HE problem of the construction of organic material out of 
I inorganic by green plants in the presence of light has occupied 
the attention of chemists, physicists and biologists for over a 
century and a half, and although, thanks to their perseverance, we 
are now acquainted with the chief facts in this chapter of plant 
physiology, our knowledge is even yet far from being complete. 
The questions suggested by the summaries given in recent text¬ 
books and the diversity of the answers presented force one to the 
conclusion that the problem, simple as it may at first sight appear, 
still awaits final solution, and that biologists, as Timiriazeff has 
wittily expressed it, must rest content, for a little while longer, to 
contemplate green leaves locked up in glass bottles, like the 
philosophers of Balnibarbi who with the aid of similar apparatus 
taught their pupils how to extract sunbeams from green cucumbers. 
The “ Travels into several remote nations of the world ”—commonly 
called “Gulliver’s Travels”—were published in 1726, fifty years 
after Grew and Malpighi first hinted at the mystery that centres 
round the performances of a green leaf in sunlight, and perhaps the 
ingenious Dean had read or heard of their researches and may have 
appropriated some of the ideas they contained. 
One difficulty confronts the modern student that the Academi¬ 
cians of Lagado were happily relieved from, viz., access to reliable 
accounts of the work of previous researchers in this realm of 
scientific investigation. The task of compiling a summary of all 
the researches that have been published on photosynthesis is by no 
means a light one, for the bibliography of the subject includes the 
titles of over a thousand books and papers and every number of 
the “ Jahresbericht ” or the “ Centralblatt ” keeps adding to the 
list. Many of these, it is true, are nothing more than trivial notes 
or “ Vorlauflge Mitteilungen,” criticisms or replies to criticisms. 
1 A paper read to the Botanical Club, Imperial College of Science and 
Technology, November 4th, 1913. 
