Am jimeri9i3arm' }     What  the  Atmosphere  is  Made  of.  255 
of  the  United  States,  and  the  recently  revised  "  Text  Book  of  Botany 
and  Pharmacognosy,"  by  Professor  Henry  Kraemer,  the  most  com- 
plete and  authoritative  work  known  to  us  on  this  subject. 
The  classes  of  the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy  have  ever 
been  kept  filled  by  reason  of  the  unquestioned  capacity  of  the 
Faculty.  As  the  graduates  passed  from  state  to  state,  and  have 
been  distributed  in  every  section  of  our  country,  they  have  main- 
tained, to  this  very  day,  their  positions  equally  with  the  graduates 
of  any  other  teaching  institution  in  the  land.  Now  comes  the  irony 
of  fate.  With  the  marvellous  history  that  we  have  thus  briefly  and 
very  incompletely  sketched,  extending  over  nearly  a  century  to  the 
present  time,  with  its  work  of  the  present  year  and  that  planned  for 
the  next,  with  an  unimpeachable  equipment  for  teaching,  and  a 
building  in  which  every  department  is  modern  and  up  to  date,  this 
great  institution  now  stands  publicly  discredited  in  one  of  our 
states,  as  explained  in  the  editorial  of  the  Druggists'  Circular. 
The  cause  for  this  untoward  state  of  affairs  seems  to  lie  simply 
in  a  difference  of  opinion  between  the  officers  of  the  Philadelphia 
College  of  Pharmacy  and  the  New  York  Board  of  Regents,  as  to 
just  what  constitutes  the  necessary  entrance  requirements  that  give 
to  an  institution  the  best  opportunity  of  serving  a  young  man  who 
comes  to  her  doors,  and  through  him  the  people,  in  the  direction 
of  pharmacy.  In  this  process  of  reasoning,  others  as  well  as  the 
Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy,  believe  that  the  end  reaction  is 
more  important  than  are  the  preliminary  details. 
WHAT  THE  ATMOSPHERE  IS  MADE  OF.1 
SIR  WILLIAM  RAMSAY  IN  LOWELL  INSTITUTE  LECTURES 
GIVES  INTIMATE  HISTORY  OF  THE  DISCOVERY  OF 
THE  GASEOUS  COMPONENTS  OF  AIR. 
By  John  Ritchie,  Jr. 
If  the  Lowell  Institute  lectures  on  the  gases  of  the  atmosphere, 
by  Sir  William  Ramsay,  had  done  nothing  more  than  show  to  the 
American  public  the  simple  and  sterling  character  of  the  man  and 
the  extraordinary  wealth  of  resource  in  expedient  at  his  command, 
they  would  have  been  well  worth  the  giving.  But  they  did  much 
more,  for  besides  the  academic  story  of  discoveries  that  have  made 
Reprinted  from  Science  Conspectus,  Vol.  iii,  (1912),  pp.  14-18. 
