man eloquent" remained true to science may be gathered from the following noble passage in the address he then delivered :"Truth is beautiful enough in itself to merit a homage abstract and pure; the role of science noble enough to satisfy the aspirations of the most exalted intellects; its field vast enough to offer a harvest to every worker. Some cut down rich crops, others are content to glean; but that which each gathers or discovers all enjoy; among men of science goods are in common; and the torch, kindled by genius, is not extinguished, even when it has communicated, from place to place, its quickening flame to the entire world. "Allow me to add that the recollections of an already long life have permitted me to become acquainted with a great variety of personages. And if I call on memory to picture to me how the type of true happiness is realised on earth, I do not see it under the form of the powerful man clothed in high authority, nor under that of the rich man to whom the splendours of luxury and the delicacies of well-being are granted, but under that of the man of science, who consecrates his life to penetrating the secrets of nature and to the discovery of new truths. Laplace, following out, for half a century, the application of the laws of the cosmic system to the movements of celestial bodies; Cuvier, inventing comparative anatomy and creating anew the ancient population of the globe; De Candolle, writing the elementary theory of botany and the description of all the known plants; Brongniart, showing how to classify soils by the fossils characterising them, these illustrious men of science, and others, who, taking them as models, have done honour to your city, and whose names are on all your lips, have known a happy life. Animated by the love of truth, and indifferent to the enjoyments of fortune, they have found their reward/ in public esteem." Such outward and visible signs of appreciation as potentates and public bodies could bestow Dumas reaped to the full. REESE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY ORNIA Nearly every academy in Europe delighted to honour him. At the age of thirty-two he became a member of the Institute; Correspondent of the Berlin Academy in 1834; and a Foreign Member of the Royal Society of London in 1840. In 1843 the Royal Society bestowed upon him its highest distinction by the award of the Copley Medal, and he was the first recipient of the Faraday Medal from the Chemical Society of London. He was made a Knight of the Prussian Order pour le mérite, and he received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour. Blessed with a singularly equable temperament and a vigorous constitution, and with a nature as warm and sunny as that of his native province, Dumas maintained his habits of "iron industry" to the last. At the beginning of 1884 he first showed indications of impaired physical powers; and, after a brief illness, he died at Cannes on the 11th of April, having nearly completed his eighty-fourth year. He was buried at Mont Parnasse. "Such a commanding figure cannot pass into forgetfulness. Your memory, Dumas, shall be perpetuated; your name transmitted from age to age. You will live in your works, in the example you have given, in the immortal productions and rare qualities of your mind : Forma mentis æterna." And Wurtz-himself, alas! too near the bourn of that undiscovered country into which his great compatriot had passed-in uttering these words expressed the sentiment of the civilised world. ΧΙ HERMANN KOPP AN ADDRESS DELIVERED TO THE FELLOWS OF THE CHEMICAL SOCIETY, 20TH FEBRUARY 1893.1 By the death of Hermann Kopp, a year ago to-day, the army of science lost one of its generals of division, and our own Society one of the oldest and most distinguished of the eminent company we are proud to call our Foreign Members. It is significant of Kopp's power and promise, and of the position that he so early won for himself in the commonwealth of science, that he should have been elected a Foreign Fellow of our Society so far back as 1849, when he was barely thirty-two years of age. With the exception of his illustrious colleague Bunsen, who is the doyen of the Forty, and whose jubilee as a Foreign Member we celebrated last year, and of the veteran Fresenius, who was elected in 1844, he was, at the time of his decease, the Senior Member on the list. As the end of the century draws near, one after another of the men who have made this century what it is are passing over to the majority. It was characteristic of Kopp, in whom humour and pathos were happily blended, that he should have taken leave of Hofmann, at what proved to be their last meeting, with the closing words of the song: 1 Chemical Society's Memorial Lectures, No. II. Der Herr im Himmel schenk ein gnädig End It would seem as if, in the sunset of life, he had seen the shadow of a coming event. Both the friends have now submitted themselves to the strict arrest of the fell sergeant, and have gone to join The innumerable caravan which moves To that mysterious realm where each shall take The nineteenth century has witnessed an extraordinary ex pansion of that branch of science which it is the proper business and true function of this Society to foster. The history of learning can show no parallel to it. Contrast the condition of chemistry in the eighteenth century with its position to-day. It is true there were giants in those days: Black, Scheele, Cavendish, Priestley, Lavoisier, are men never to be forgotten. But their merit rests not more on the number or magnitude of their discoveries than on the influence they exercised on an intellectual movement, which it is at once the privilege and the glory of this century to have furthered and accelerated. Indeed we venture to think that the dispassionate historian of this movement, who, with "the cold neutrality of an impartial judge,” weighs and assesses the part which successive workers have had in its progress, will recognise in the giants of our own time-men whose names are familiar in our mouths as household words-the signs of a mental stature not only as great as, but possibly even greater than, that of the greatest of their predecessors. The history of an epoch is the history of its leading men. They are the centres and sources of intellectual energy. In them the ever-widening waves of mental progress have their origin, and it is under their vivifying influence that science and learning grow and spread. Hence, therefore, we do well, from time to time, to gauge our gain in knowledge by contemplating the life work of the men who have fashioned it, and who have stamped it with the marks of their power and individuality. It is this consideration that has induced your Council to see in the occasions which the stern act of death compels us to notice, opportunities, not only of recording our sense of reverence, esteem, and admiration for those who have so faithfully tended the lamp of learning, but also of tracing the immediate outcome of their labours, and of measuring its effect on contemporary science. By the wish of your Council I appear this evening, on this, the first anniversary of the death of Kopp, to discharge what is to me a pious duty. Five-and-twenty years ago it was my good fortune as a student in Heidelberg to come into contact with Kopp, and to be influenced by his work and teaching. To know Kopp was to love him, and to love him was, as Steele wrote of another, a liberal education. For to his friends he was ever ready to display the ample treasures of a mind rich not only in the lore of an ancient learning, but stored with the knowledge of a time of great achievement and of profound historical interest-the time which stretches from the closing years of Berzelius down to the final decade of the century; which covers the period of the grand movement which had its inception in the little laboratory on the banks of the Lahn, and which witnessed those memorable intellectual combats between the champions of opposing schools of chemical thought, the echoes of which are only faintly heard, if heard at all, by the student of to-day. Kopp's colloquial powers were admirable; like the Great Lexicographer, he loved to fold his legs and have his talk out. His strong common sense; his vigorous, incisive thought; the range of his information of men and letters; his quick, retentive memory; his felicity of expression; his fund of anecdote; his ready wit and genial humour-all made him delightful to |