SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
Personal. 
PROFESSOR DAVID ORME MASSON, C.B.E., M.A., D.Sc., F.R.S- 
AN APPRECIATION. 
The Melbourne University was founded in 1853, and for the first 
thirty years or so of its existence the place held in it by Science was. 
one of comparative insignificance. The distinguished Sir Frederick 
McCoy presided over a single department with the title of Professor of 
Natural Science. By the eighties it had become abundantly evident 
that even a man of Sir Frederick’s parts could not compass all that 
“ Natural Science” had come to include, and the University appointed 
to its staff probably the most remarkable triumvirate that any Colonial 
University has ever attracted at one period. In 1886, Dr. David Orme: 
Masson, formerly assistant to Professor (later Sir William) Ramsay, 
in University College, Bristol, became its first Professor of Chemistry; 
soon afterwards Mr. (now Sir) Baldwin Spencer accepted the Chair of 
Biology, and two years later, Mr. T. R. Lyle that of Physics. To these 
three men, who always worked in close and harmonious association, not 
only the University of Melbourne, but the whole of Australia, is deeply 
indebted for scientific services of the highest merit, and for many general 
public services no less creditable. 
Dr. Masson was but 28 years of age at his appointment. It is 
unusual for a scientist to attain the dignity of a professorship so early, 
but the record on which the appointment was made was equally unusual. 
Mr. Masson was educated at the Edinburgh Academy, and later at the 
University of Edinburgh, where his famous father, Professor David 
.Masson, the Historiographer Royal for Scotland, occupied the Chair 
of Rhetoric and English Literature. He graduated as Master of Arts. 
in 1877, and in 1880 as Bachelor of Science. For some six months in 
1879 he studied at Gottingen under one of the leading chemists of a 
by-gone generation, Dr. Wohler. It was during the following year that 
he was associated with Professor Ramsay at -Bristol, beginning an 
intimate friendship that only ended with Ramsay’s death. Then for 
three years he held a Research Fellowship, and worked again at Edin- 
burgh under Professor Crum Brown. His researches included investiga- 
tions upon molecular volumes of a number of liquids, upon the action 
of halogens on certain organic substances known as the sulphine salts,. 
and also upon the composition of a now very familiar chemical, nitro- 
glycerine. In recognition of these, he was admitted in 1884 to the 
degree of Doctor of Science. That he at the same time took a leading: 
part in the general life of the University, is evident from the fact that 
he was Senior President of the first Students’ Representative Council, 
and convener of the committee which inaugurated the Edinburgh 
University Union. He was also a member of the University Buildings. 
Committee. 
When, in 1886, Dr. Masson came to Melbourne, there was practically 
no school of chemistry worth the name, and for the first fifteen. years or 
so he devoted himself mainly to the task of creating a school with a 
tradition of sound teaching and sound research. Gradually he was. 
then drawn more and more into that general administrative work which,, 
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