Amjiiy,ri9o?arm'}  The  "  Hofmann  Hans."  349 
THE  «  HOFMANN  HAUS." 
By  H.  V.  Arny,  Ph.D. 
On  October  20,  1900,  the  German  Chemical  Society  dedicated, 
with  appropriate  ceremonies,  the  magnificent  building  erected  in 
Berlin  as  a  memorial  to  the  great  pioneer  in  the  aniline  industry 
and  the  famed  teacher  of  chemistry,  A.  W.  von  Hofmann. 
The  building,  designed  as  a  home  for  the  German  Chemical 
Society  and  kindred  organizations  and  as  a  hospice  for  sojourning 
foreign  chemists,  is  located  at  Sigismundstrasse  4,  and  is  a  four, 
storied  fire  proof  structure  with  a  twenty-two  meter  front  of  Silesian 
sandstone,  with  two  ornamental  iron  bow  windows  projecting  from 
the  second  and  third  stories  respectively,  and  with  a  red-tiled  man- 
sard roof.  The  ground  floor  is  occupied  by  janitor's  quarters  and 
by  a  research  laboratory.  The  second  floor  front  contains  offices 
of  the  society,  while  the  third  floor  front  is  devoted  to  the  library 
and  committee  rooms. 
The  rear  part  of  the  building  is  given  up  to  an  assembly  hall, 
contains  254  seats  arranged  in  tiers,  rising  level  with  the  third 
story,  the  lecture  counter  being  flush  with  the  second  floor.  The 
top  floors  of  the  building  are  fitted  up  as  offices  and  as  store  build, 
ings.  The  entire  edifice  is  lighted  with  electricity,  contains  an 
electric  elevator  and  is  heated  with  hot  water.  This  structure  and 
the  lot  on  which  it  stands  represents  an  expenditure  of  575,000 
marks. 
A  full  account  of  the  enterprise  was  contained  in  a  special  issue 
of  the  Berichte  of  the  Society,  published  at  the  beginning  of  this 
year,  and  from  it  we  can  glean  several  lessons  of  value  in  the  con- 
sideration of  the  proposed  Procter  Memorial.  The  figures  will  be 
given,  as  in  the  original,  in  German  Reichsmarks,  the  equivalent  in 
dollars  being  easily  reckoned  by  dividing  by  four. 
The  financial  commencement  of  the  enterprise  was  the  occasion  of 
Hofmann's  seventieth  birthday,  when  his  admirers  raised  a  purse  of 
39,000  marks.  Seven  thousand  marks  of  this  was  expended  on  a 
bust  of  the  master ;  the  remaining  32,000  marks  being  handed 
Hofmann  as  a  jubilee  purse.  The  recipient,  with  his  characteristic 
generosity,  augmented  the  amount  with  8,000  marks  of  his  own 
means  and  returned  it  to  the  committee  with  the  request  that  it  be 
called  the  Hofmann  fund  and  used  for  the  advancement  of  chemical 
science. 
