THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY MEETING OF THE COUNCIL

THE Council of the American Chemical Society, President George D. Rosengarten presiding, and with 120 councilors in attendance, met at Detroit on the afternoon of September 5.

The section of history of chemistry having held successfully the six meetings prescribed by the council. petitioned that it be made a division of the society and this request was granted and the by-laws submitted approved. New by-laws presented by the division of chemistry of medicinal products were also approved. A proposal that a section of chemical economics should be organized was discussed and without formal vote referred to the division of industrial and engineering chemistry, under the auspices of which symposia will be held to determine interest in the subject.

A. B. Lamb, of Harvard University, was reelected editor of the Journal of the society, and associate editors Roger Adams, of the University of Illinois, and E. W. Washburn, chief chemist of the Bureau of Standards, Washington, D. C., were reelected members of his board. E. J. Crane, Ohio State University, was reelected editor of Chemical Abstracts, and H. E. Howe, of Washington, editor of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry. W. A. Noyes, of Urbana, Ill., was reelected editor of the Scientific Series of Monographs, and H. E. Howe, editor of the Technologic Series. F. A. Lidbury, of Niagara Falls, N. Y., A. D. Little, Cambridge, Mass., and C. E. K. Mees, of Rochester, N. Y., were reelected to the technologic monograph board. H S. Taylor, of Prince

ton, and W. A. Patrick, of Johns Hopkins University, were elected as society representatives on the editorial board of the Journal of Physical Chemistry. William McPherson, of Ohio State University, was reelected a member of the society's executive committee.

The president of the society having been asked to lend his name to the national committee being organized to secure the financial participation of the United States in the erection of a Maison de la Chimie in Paris in commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Marcelin Berthelot in which memorial building is intended to house the international office of chemistry. the formation of which is to be undertaken through diplomatic channels next May, the president called upon the secretary to read the papers in the matter and to give the history of recent movements looking toward the creation in one of the capitals of Europe of international control of chemistry. Following the complete statement which included the request of the president for advice from the society's executive committee, the following was presented for the council's action:

President George D. Rosengarten, of the American Chemical Society, having asked counsel of his advisers regarding a communication from M. Maurice Leon, vicechairman of the "American Organization Committee for American Participation in a Maison de la Chimie" requesting the use of his name as a member of the committee, the executive committee of the Society unani

mously advise him to decline for the reason that his

acceptance would tacitly commit the American Chemical Society to a project it can not approve.

The American Chemical Society is glad to honor the name and accomplishments of Marcelin Berthelot and in evidence thereof has appointed two of its own past presidents to represent it at the centenary celebration on October 25, 1927. An international "Maison de la

Chimie" and "An International Office of Chemistry" nationally conceived with predetermined control and location in Paris is an entirely different matter to which the American Chemical Society can not give its adherence, even though it has been connected with so eminent a name as Berthelot to insure its success.

The American Chemical Society has naught but good wishes for the "Chemists' Club" of New York, the long considered "House of Chemistry" of Great Britain, the "Hofmann House" of Berlin, or for a national “Maison de la Chimie" to be located in Paris and would be glad to see any of its members, who are so inclined, contribute to their support. It can not, however, admit the pro

priety of any national group assuming the right to cen

tralization of control of international chemistry within its own territory and sphere of influence, even if the major costs of construction and upkeep of such an institution were not assessed upon the rest of the world. The American Chemical Society believes that if an International Office of Chemistry, having its object

the centralization of influence of chemical science, both pure and applied, is ever deemed desirable or necessary, it should be inspired through cooperative action of the world's scientific chemical organizations and not by governments through political channels.

The American Chemical Society does not approve any world centralization of control of chemistry and believes that the future progress of chemistry can best be served as heretofore by harmonious cooperation of national organizations.

The society specifically disclaims any discourtesy to the organizers of the present movement, but believes the underlying principle to be so detrimental to continued international cooperation that it would be lacking in probity if it did not make its judgment known.

After a few questions it was moved and carried that the council approve the advice given by the executive committee. The motion was then carried, without dissenting vote, that the secretary be directed to inform those government officials before whom the question of the office of international chemistry might come of the society's position.

The report of Dean Wendt, director of the first session of the Institute of Chemistry of the American Chemical Society, was presented and accepted with thanks to all those who had been active in furthering the interests of the institute.

At the Richmond meeting it was requested that a by-law be framed regarding the Endowment Fund and the following By-law No. 22 was adopted: The Endowment Fund of the society shall, Article 4, Sec. 2, of the Constitution of the Society, be collected and administered in two parts: (1) A permanent fund, the income of which alone may be expended only to help meet the society's constantly growing need for funds to record the results of chemical research in its publications; and (2) a revolving fund limited to $100,000 to insure the publication of successive decennial indices to Chemical Abstracts, the sales of which shall be credited to the fund until the $100,000 has been reached or replenished. Any excess above $100,000 in the Revolving Fund at the end of any fiscal year may be used for the same purposes as the income of the permanent fund.

The report of the executive committee made by direction of the council at the Richmond meeting concerning a proposal that an Institute for Chemical Education be established was presented and referred to the society's committee of chemical education. The report in part follows: At the Richmond meeting the council referred to the executive committee for consideration and report the recommendation of the committee on chemical education that there be approved an Institute of Chemical Education. Although the resolution specifies that in all financial details such

an institute shall be subject to final approval by the directors and in other matter to the approval of the executive committee or the council, the committee feels that as referred to it details concerning such an institute are as yet too nebulous to enable intelligent action to be taken. While it is understood that the discussion of such a research institute, both in the senate of chemical education and in the committee on chemical education, centered around the tentative plan published in the Journal of Chemical Education in January, 1927, it has been stated in conversation by several members both of the senate and of the committee that there is a lack of agreement with respect to the plan published. However, resulting discussion has brought forward several points worthy of further consideration.

Therefore, while the executive committee feels that the matter is not in a form sufficiently definite to enable it to give either a negative or an affirmative answer, it has seemed best to present in this report to the council a suggestion for the initiation of work in which we are all interested, with the recommendation that the committee on chemical education give it careful study and consideration, with the hope that from it will come a more definite plan upon which the council and the directors can take action.

A new amendment to the constitution was proposed whereby there would be added to the list of officers a president-elect who, at the end of one year, would automatically become president of the society. While president-elect he would serve upon the board of directors, the executive committee, and as a member of the council, thereby gaining an insight into the affairs of the society before, assuming the responsibility of the presidency. This suggestion was automatically referred to a committee to be appointed by the president and which will later report to the council.

The council stood in respectful silence in memory of members deceased since the spring meeting. These included the following: F. T. Bayles, of Indianapolis, Ind.; Bertram B. Boltwood, of Yale University; J. G. Edward Cullmann, Lock Haven, Pa.; Edward H. Darby, Rome, N. Y.; Herbert M. Hill, Buffalo, N. Y.; Norman E. Holt, London, England; Victor Lenher, University of Wisconsin; C. F. Mabery, Case School of Applied Science (retired); H. P. Talbot, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Geoffrey Weyman, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England.

The council accepted the invitation of the Minnesota Section, the headquarters of which are in Minneapolis, to hold the annual or autumn meeting in that city in

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REFLECTIONS OF A CHEMIST1

ANTHROPOLOGISTS divide the era of human existence into ages according to the material of the implements used during a given period-the Stone Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Far be it from my thoughts to dispute the correctness of this classification, but it does seem a misrepresentation or a wrong characterization to continue the present, or even the preceding, century in the iron age. With the advent of the twentieth century, at the latest, the count of a new age begins. What shall be the name of this age? Your reply may well be anticipated-chemistry. Not your partiality or mine prompts this reply. It is the verdict of facts, for the advances from the stone to the bronze and from the bronze to the iron age are really the results of the progress of the art of chemistry.

The rôle chemistry is playing in the world affairs is too well known to require elaboration. In its broadest embrace colloidal, catalytic, biological, therapeutic and what not-chemistry is the moving principle of this world of ours. It is nothing less than life and death! We all know the wonders chemistry has accomplished within the short space of time it has been given a systematic unprejudiced trial. These accomplishments and the potentialities of chemical science have also been well advertised, perhaps a little too much. The chemically untutored will expect too much and too soon, with resulting disappointment and reflection on the science and its followers.

IMPORTANCE OF PURE SCIENCE

A far more important problem and one requiring our immediate and undivided attention is so-called "pure chemistry." I should rather like to call it "science of chemistry" in contradistinction to the practical application of chemistry which would be more correctly designated as the "art of chemistry."

Pure science is the protoplasm of applied science. It is the brick and mortar of our sky-scraping buildings of industry and commerce. Our civilization of which we are so proud, the comforts of life we are enjoying, are wholly built on discoveries emanating from the search for scientific truths, from the pursuit of science for the sake of the science itself. As Secretary Hoover has very tersely put it, "It is in the soil

1 Presidential address delivered at the seventy-fourth meeting of the American Chemical Society, Detroit, Mich., September 5 to 10, 1927.