shi cal and public neglect over so long a period offers th an equally notable example of what American haste and superficiality continue increasingly to be.

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But some rumor of Gibbs's work finally did reach Europe; öttingen mentioned it to Ostwald; Ostwald 36 investigated-being particularly interested in the subject of chemical equilibrium. In his autobiography, "Lebenslinien," now being published, he recounts the incident quoted at the Holland celebration:

öttingen had already mentioned to me while I was yet at Dorpat the existence of a work on thermodynamthics by an American physicist. He had referred to it as significant, but difficult to follow.

In order to make myself clear concerning this mightiest of all means (thermodynamics) for developing a theory of chemical affinity, I began the study of Gibbs's paper after no little difficulty in trying to secure a copy of it. My experience with the paper tallied with that of Öttingen-I found it difficult to make headway in it, yet I recognized, and that without a doubt, its immense importance. Not many had anticipated me in the recognition of this work; previously, only Maxwell in England and van der Waals in Holland had referred to it.

There seemed no other way possible for me to gain an understanding of the work than to translate the paper word for word. An abstract of it was impossible because it was already so condensed that further abbreviation was out of the question. It was also my thought that by a German translation and publication of this long-neglected masterpiece it could be brought to light and allowed to take the place that its importance should merit among other investigations.

Gibbs's paper proved of the greatest influence on my own development, for-although he did not emphasize the point nor even mention it-Gibbs concerned himself exclusively with energy magnitudes and their factors and avoided completely all kinetic hypotheses. By so doing he won for his results a permanence and security that has placed them among the highest products of intellectual attainment. It is a fact that up to the present time, not a single error either in his formulae, his results, nor yet-and this is the most remarkable-in his assumptions has been found. Among scientific articles there are to be found not a few wherein the logic and mathematics are faultless, but which for all that are worthless because the assumptions and hypotheses upon which the faultless logic and mathematics rest do not correspond to actuality. In this most important respect the work of Gibbs is free from error.

available in the English language. Not until 1906 (thirty years after its first printing and three years after its author's death) Longmans brought out in England an edition of the few papers ever published by Gibbs. A German edition is now no longer necessary.

Willard Gibbs was an excessively modest and reserved genius. His entire life, with the exception of a few years spent elsewhere in study, was passed in New Haven, Connecticut, where his father before him was a professor in the university. Of his greatness-he is without question the greatest scientific genius the United States has produced-neither the citizens of his native town nor yet of America had any conception. He was to be discovered first in Europe. This occurred in Holland through the physicist van der Waals-in Germany through öttingen and myself. In Holland an entire school of followers beginning with the student of Bemmelin, Bakhuis Roozeboom, has developed around a single one of the many generalizations that Willard Gibbs arrived at and published in his great work. The nucleus of the Holland group is the Phase Law of Gibbs. It was thus that by degrees the scientific world became aware that in Willard Gibbs dwelt a mind worthy to rank along side those of the great physicists Helmholtz, Clausius and W. Thompson.

The close consideration that I was compelled to give to the work of Gibbs in order to translate it was of great advantage to me. Although I was able to follow his mathematical processes only incompletely, I nevertheless acquired from the attempt to follow them an invaluable method of thought. I learned the value of the straightforward reality with which he grasped the separate problems and the exhaustive vision with which he marshaled his equations and developed from them far-lying consequences. Also I could not help but realize that the two hundred equations that his work embraced were, without exception, equations dealing with purely energy magnitudes. For me this fact had the greatest significance for it showed that every fundamental Arbeit must be a work based upon the fundamental laws of energy."

Besides Ostwald, to whom the memory of Gibbs must owe a special debt of gratitude, many other Europeans participated in the jubilee celebration of the publication of Gibbs's work held by the Holland group.

Le Chatelier paid his respects to the memory of Gibbs upon this occasion. In his contribution he attributed to Gibbs the rôle of creator and designates his creation as the immense domain of Méchanique Chimique. He said:

This chapter of science Gibbs created and added to human knowledge where nothing had existed before; and this creation of his was so complete and perfect as it came from his hands that the fifty years that have passed have been able to add little or nothing to it. The numerous savants who have in the meantime concerned themselves with like questions have accomplished

little more than a paraphrase of his work. They have perhaps completed some points in more detail; but more often they have only applied to particular cases laws formulated by Gibbs. Gibbs deduced and expressed his Phase Law in two pages; but there have been published many large volumes recording divers applications of it.

In 1899, twenty-two years after its American printing and five years after Ostwald's German translation appeared, Le Chatelier translated into the French language and published the paper of Gibbs.

An important tribute to the accomplishment of Gibbs was expressed by Professor Donnan, of London, whose notable work on membrane equilibria is one of the manifold applications of the principles formulated by Gibbs and here applied to thermodynamic investigations of life processes. It was Donnan's tribute to Gibbs on the occasion of the centenary celebration of the founding of Franklin Institute that came to many of our countrymen as a matter of news-came as a front page announcement of a great discovery-twenty years after the death of Gibbs. On that occasion he referred to the paper of Gibbs as "one of the mightiest works of genius the human mind has ever produced." In his contribution to the Holland jubilee, instead of dealing with his own special work and the relation it bore to the generalization of Gibbs, he dealt with the great unifying influence of the work of Gibbs as shown in the diversity of its application and in particular he dwelt on its immense practical value to industry. He said:

The systems with which the chemist is called upon to deal in the carrying out of industrial processes are usually of extreme complexity when viewed from the standpoint of kinetic and electronic theory. The exacting demands of modern life do not allow him to confine his labors to ideal solutions or ideal gas mixtures or to monatomic crystals in the neighborhood of absolute zero. The rapid advances of physics and physical chemistry in modern times undoubtedly hold out the hope that the time will come perhaps in no very distant future when the structure and activity of the material world will be understood in terms of a theory based on the potentialities and activities of electrons, protons and radiation, or possibly of radiant energy alone. Although such a theory already exists in outline, it is not sufficiently developed to suffice for the immediate needs of the chemist who is called upon to devise and control technical processes involving concentrated solutions of complex composition and often containing substances of complex molecular structure. During the past thirty or forty years, however, chemical science has been able to utilize, with immense benefit to itself, that part of physical science known as thermodynamics whereby the most complex equilibria can be dealt with quantitatively without any knowledge of the intimate "mechanisms'' underlying physical and chemical phenomena.

We owe the first complete and general exposition of the thermodynamics of multiple component systems, especially in relation to heterogeneous equilibria to the pioneer work of Josiah Willard Gibbs in the late seventies of the last century. . . . Donnan concludes his tribute by quoting from Sir William Pope the words, referring to Gibbs's Phase Law, "Who would have believed thirty years ago that the Phase Rule of Willard Gibbs would to-day be an important accessory to the manufacture of a number of heavy chemicals? Yet the men who learned the principles of this seemingly mathematical abstraction as students have revolutionized a great branch of chemical industry.

The address upon this occasion by Tammann, whose Fach is metallurgy and whose interests might seem remote from the physics of life processes that chiefly interest Donnan, contains this sentence:

Never has an abstract investigation so influenced the fundamental basis of industry as has the treatise of Gibbs on heterogeneous equilibrium.

Such quotations could be indefinitely extended. Those that have been given are not ephemeral; they are based by their authors upon a long and profitable personal experience leading to an ever-increasing knowledge and appreciation of the beauty, utility and value of the work of Gibbs. It has been mentioned that the universality of the principles of heterogeneous equilibrium was fully realized by Gibbs. The extent to which they have been realized in actuality is witnessed by the great number of investigations they have inspired and by their important results. These investigations cover the most diversified fields of human interest. A coordination of them in simple understandable terms would form one of the most interesting chapters in Naturphilosophie.

The hearty and sincere tributes of Europe to an American scholar might suggest one basis at least on which international amity is secure. But international amity even on so ideal a basis is not secure the moment the practical application of pure science is made by industry, and by the industry of that nation Not the best qualified to make application of it. only was the value of the work of Gibbs in the field of pure science first recognized by Europeans-the source from which the inspiration of Gibbs was wholly drawn-it was in Europe also that it found its most extensive and efficient application. The laws of heterogeneous equilibrium are the laws upon which are based industrial synthetic processes. merce has become familiar with many of its products.

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When the possibilities and advantages of industrial appropriation of the results of pure science are in a degree realized from tangible results and the broad highway leading to them prepared and thrown

open to all traffic, many interesting relations are revealed that are not directly recognized as those of pure physics. By way of suggestion, the following te from Pasteur may be of interest:

Science it is true is of no nationality

yet it is the highest personification of nationality. Science has no nationality because knowledge is the patrimony of all humanity-the torch that gives light to the world. Science should be the highest personification of nationality, because of all the nations that one will always be foremost that shall be first to progress by the labors of thought and intelligence.

WASHINGTON, D. C.

F. W. STEVENS

ARTHUR ARTON HAMERSCHLAG ARTHUR ARTON HAMERSCHLAG, born in Nebraska, was a native of the West, educated in the East, honored for his work by university degrees and society fellowships. He was perhaps most widely known for his advancement of trade and technical educational methods, culminating in the presidency of the Carnegie Institute of Technology at Pittsburgh for a period of twenty years.

With the advent of the world war he gave his technical services to his country as advisory assistant to the Secretary of War. At its close he returned to technical engineering investigations as president of the Research Corporation of New York, a service closed by death on July 20, 1927, at the age of fiftyeight years.

Thus ended a life characterized by breadth of vision, tempered by scientific honesty, keen insight, careful judgment, deep concentration, the results of an analytical mind and ripe scholarship.

He made scientific studies of commercial problems which have added to industrial progress, and his advice was sought in many fields. His life was a busy one and many of his studies required a large outlay of time and patience to unravel. Yet, with all his duties and urgent demands on time, he was never too busy to give counsel and advice to young men. This phase of his activities is known to those directly affected, but not to the outside scientific and industrial world, where his technical attainments were so well recognized.

These young men were encouraged to do their best work, to seek advancement on merit. Their problems were discussed from all angles and solution reached, just as in his work for industrial companies. They reported to him at regular intervals on their work and progress.

The advice was given in personal interviews and even more by correspondence, usually by

return mail. The number of these men would run probably into the hundreds during his lifetime.

The results are shown in the high positions in the industrial world now held by these protégés of Dr. Hamerschlag. They serve as executives, superintendents, etc., in some of the largest industries. They owe to a very large extent their progress and acknowledge their success as due to this influence.

He appeared to take a special delight and pleasure in these reports and in the advancement of these men. He delighted in sketching their upward rise in business, though seldom giving the name of the man.

Scientific and technical attainments survive and become part of knowledge and science, but the personal' influence of a great and helpful man becomes part of life and character. Character building is as important, if not more so, than scientific growth, but when both are combined, that man becomes notable.

In a world beset with complexities, worry, toil, the lightening of the load by encouragement and helpful advice to the discouraged is a real humanitarian service.

Dr. Hamerschlag was a great engineer and educator; he was also a most valuable adviser and spur to greater endeavor to many young men who will miss his help, but who have become better and more successful men by his life, and who are very glad to pay this tribute to his memory.

BALTIMORE, MD.

G. P. GRIMSLEY

SCIENTIFIC EVENTS

CENTENARIES OF 1927

IN the London Times, as quoted in Nature, Professor H. J. Spooner directs attention to some of the notable centenaries which occur this year. Among the names of men of science which he mentions are those of Newton, Laplace, Fresnel, Volta and Lister. The bi-centenary of the death of Newton will be celebrated at Grantham in March, while the centenary of the death of Volta is being recognized by the holding of an electrical exhibition at Como. The custom of commemorating such events should find general acceptance, for, as Fairbairn once remarked, "the smallest honor we can do the great benefactors of mankind is occasionally to bring them to our recollection." To the names mentioned others are added by Nature, which says: "Next in interest to mathematicians and astronomers, after Newton and Laplace, comes that of Robert Woodhouse (1773-1827), successively Lucasian professor and Plumian professor, to whom belongs the credit of introducing the calculus at Cambridge and who found earnest disciples in Babbage,

Herschel and Peacock. Another astronomer who died the same year was Calandrelli (1749-1827), once director of the Vatican Observatory, while going back four hundrd years we have the birth of Stadius (1527-1579), a predecessor of Kepler as mathematician to the Emperor of Germany. A contemporary of Stadius who should not be overlooked was the famous Dr. John Dee, alchemist and astrologer, who was born in 1527 and died in 1608. To chemists and physicists the tercentenary of the birth of Boyle (1627-1691) and the centenary of the death of Augustin Jean Fresnel (1788-1827) will afford the greatest interest. Though Fresnel sank into an early grave he was one of the foremost students of optics, and it was only eight days before his death that Arago placed in his hands the Rumford medal of the Royal Society. Another physicist of note who died in the same year was Chladni (1756–1827), whose works on sound were translated into French through Napoleon. Henry Beaufoy (1764-1827) was both physicist and astronomer, but is still better known for his experiments in naval architecture. The year 1827 saw the publication by Ohm of "The Galvanic Circuit worked out Mathematically.' Although no great chemist died in 1827, in that year were born Sir Frederick Abel (18271902), John H. Gladstone (1827-1902), Edward Nicholson (1827-1890) and, most distinguished of all, Marcellin Berthelot (1827-1907). In the same year the death occurred of Samuel Crompton (1753-1827), whose work as the inventor of the spinning mule will be the occasion of a gathering at Bolton, and also of George Medhurst (1759-1827), one of the inventors of the atmospheric railway. Among the great pioneers of last century was Sandford Fleming (born 1827), who was engineer-in-chief of the Canadian Pacific Railway from 1871 until 1880."

THE SEISMOLOGICAL WORK OF THE U. S. COAST AND GEODETIC SURVEY

THE most comprehensive survey of earthquakes of the United States, including the insular domain, ever undertaken by the government, is being compiled by the Coast and Geodetic Survey under the supervision of the director of the survey, E. Lester Jones.

The data are being compiled by the chief of the Division of Terrestrial Magnetism and Seismology, Commander N. H. Heck, to show the history of all the major disturbances that have been recorded on seismological instruments in United States territory, some cases dating back approximately a century. This information will be embodied in a compendium which will appear in the autumn telling the story of the principal earthquakes in both technical and non-technical language, with a short résumé of the

scientific data, grouped by states and sections of the country as well as chronologically arranged.

The survey has recently completed its seismological report for October, November and December, 1925, with supplemental data to complete the record for 1924, and it has begun work for the official complete detailed record of 1926.

The 1925 report, prepared by the mathematician of the Division of Terrestrial Magnetism and Seismology, Frank Neuman, with the assistance of Lieutenant J. H. Service, Ensign F. B. Quinn and J. D. ⠀ Thurmond, junior engineer, shows that out of 137 earthquakes recorded in United States domain from October 1 to December 31 of that year, the locations of the disturbances were well known or approximately known in 83 cases and uncertain or unknown in the other 54 cases.

The distribution of these known locations of earthquakes, by states, follows:

California, 17; foreign and submarine, 40; Mexico, 6; Wyoming, 4; Guam, 3; Connecticut, 3; Montana and Nevada, 2 each; Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Washington (State), 1 each.

During that three months' period, seismographs formerly in operation at Vieques, Porto Rico, being thoroughly overhauled, were put in operation in the new Coast and Geodetic Survey magnetic and seismological observatory near San Juan, Porto Rico.

The surveys designed to detect earthquakes in California were continued during that period and a party, under the direction of William Mussetter, operated in the vicinity of the western end of the Santa Barbara channel.

Vessels engaged in survey work are directed to make reports of visible or felt effects of earthquakes but none were reported by them and examination of tidal records from the numerous gauges on the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans disclosed no indication of tidal waves during the three months.

The complete seismological summary for 1925 showing "distribution of earthquakes recorded in the United States, the regions under United States jurisdiction and adjacent sections," enumerate 568 earthquakes so recorded during the year 1925, of which 222 were definitely or approximately located (locations officially described as "well-known or approximately known"), locations of 77 being listed as uncertain and locations of 269 as still unknown.

Of these 568 earthquakes, 130 were "provisionally located" as occurring in North America and 43 with some uncertainty in North America; 4 provisionally, and 1 uncertainly, in South America; 3 provisionally, in Europe; 11 provisionally, and 1 uncertainly, in

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Asia; 7 in the Atlantic Ocean and adjacent water, provisionally; 60 provisionally, and 32 uncertainly, in the Pacific Ocean and adjacent waters; 7 provisionally in the Indian Ocean, and adjacent waters; 269 unknown.

THE AERIAL SURVEY DETACHMENT

Two aerial survey detachments, each composed of a commissioned officer of the Army Air Corps, who is a photographic pilot, and an enlisted photographer, were recently authorized by the War Department, for the purpose of assisting the U. S. Geological Survey in carrying out its extensive program for the present calendar year in mapping areas in various states throughout the country.

One of these detachments will photograph areas in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, approximating 8,000 square miles. A great portion of these areas, particularly in Maine, have never been adequately mapped, and all existing are old and somewhat obsolete. The other detachment will begin operations on a 4,000 square mile area in Illinois, and later will photograph areas in Michigan and Wisconsin.

One detachment of this kind, organized last year for a like purpose, photographed during a six months' period approximately 9,000 square miles of territory in the states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois. Through the work of this detachment it is estimated that the saving to the government was approximately $100,000, thus demonstrating the efficacy and economy of aerial surveying.

Each aerial survey detachment is equipped with trilens camera and accessories, and furnished with two special photographic planes, one of which is held in reserve. The function of these detachments is to make aerial photographs, which are in turn used in making topographic maps by the Geological Survey. The personnel of the detachments is relieved of all other military duties and assigned exclusively to aerial survey activities for a period of six months. It is placed under the direct control of the chief of Air Corps, who is authorized to issue the necessary orders, for its movements and employment, according to the program submitted by the survey.

THE CHEMICAL EXPOSITION FROM the advance information which has reached Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, it may be announced that

Many distinctively new and outstanding achievements in chemical engineering, in the manufacture of instruments of precision, in mechanical engineering as applied to the chemical industry, in new apparatus of various and sundry kinds, and, we are happy to say, in new chemicals and new chemical products, will feature the Eleventh Ex

position of Chemical Industries, which will open its doors to the public on September 26 at the Grand Central Palace, New York City. There will be an extensive exhibit of casein plastics, some of which are new in the field and deserve careful examination. Alloys especially high in their resistance to corrosion will be another point of interest, for some of them have been offered only lately following a considerable period of research. One of the great corporations which has not been prominently identified with this development has recently undertaken some new lines of manufacture, the products of which will be seen at the exposition.

This year in a section devoted largely to exhibitors of containers, emphasis will be placed upon packaging, weighing, labeling and handling equipment. The subject of containers has long been a troublesome one, for in the past many products of the chemical industry have been marketed in such disreputable packages that attention was directed to the matter some time ago.. Not only is the use of such packages detrimental from the sales point of view, but in some instances the common carriers have refused to accept some commodities for transportation, not primarily because of their hazard, but chiefly because of the carelessness in methods of packing. This unfortunate situation is now much relieved and the exhibits to be found this year at the exposition will prove of great assistance to chemical manufacturers.

Among the exhibits will be found many of distinctly educational nature. These include those under the auspices of the American Ceramic Society, the American Chemical Society, the National Safety Council, several bureaus of the United States Department of Commerce and the United States Department of Agriculture. Several industries will use the opportunity to promote the education of the public with reference to their products, as for example, the new types of glass which permit a large percentage of the active rays of the sun to pass through them. Iowa State College will present evidences of development in the industrial use of agricultural products. From the territory represented by such railroads as the Southern and the Southern Pacific Company, and from the Ontario Department of Mines will come interesting displays of natural raw materials from the field as well as from the mine. The southern section will include a considerable number of exhibitors, part of which will represent commercial houses and large industries. Some three hundred exhibitors are upon the list of those who have engaged space.

SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS BERTRAM BORDEN BOLTWOOD, since 1910 professor of radio-chemistry in Yale University, died by suicide on August 14, at the age of fifty-seven years.

FRIENDS of Mr. Thomas A. Edison and employees of the Edison interests throughout the country joined on August 8 on the lawn of Edison's home at Llewellyn Park, West Orange, N. J., in honoring the inventor, who fifty years ago completed the first mechanism for