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ISDUSTRIAL d S D EAYGISEERISGCHEMISTRY
Vol. 21, No. 11
AMERICAN CONTEMPORARIES Felix Lengfeld
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HERE were ten of us in Felix Lengfeld’s first (and only) I t is not given to every man to accomplish great things, nor class in organic chemistry a t Rerkeley in the fall of 1891. even to do justice to his own abikities. Luck plays a part, and He still says that, with the exception of one cantankerous many handicaps are imposed. In Lengfeld’s case greatly imindividual (whose name is here modestly omitted), it was the paired vision put an end to a promising career as scholar and best class he ever taught. XVe may have scientist. His greatest discovery was Julius been bright young lads in the lecture hall Stieglitz. When that now distinguished and laboratory, but we were darn poor chemist joined Lengfeld a t Chicago in 1892. judges of human qualities. For Lengfeld fresh from Berlin, he didn’t know the difwas quite unanimously unpopular among ference between an ion and an eye-opener, us, and we couldn’t understand what Eddie and it was Lengfeld who first awakened i n O’Neill liked about him. him an appreciation of the new trend in Lengfeld was cold and distant; he stalked the science. The first papers in the series around the work benches with a painfully of brilliant studies in molecular rearrangestiff vertebral column; he sniffed audibly. ments which has made Stieglitz famous were a t some of our best theories; and occajoint publications with Lengfeld as senior sionally he so far forgot himself as to wax author. eloquently sarcastic. Of course we felt we Lengfeld will probably be the last speciwere in the hands of a man who knew his men of a fast-vanishing species, the allstuff; but nobody among us wept when we round chemist (ckemicus rotundus). Most learned that he was leaving a t the end of species disappear from lack of fodder; the that year to go t o the newly opened Uniall-round chemist is being choked off by versity of Chicago. too much abundance. Our friend has a I n o w k n o w that the beggar actually w i d e k n o w 1e d g e of inorganic, organic, liked us, and that his frigid aloofness was physical, analytical, and biochemistry; and merely a pose, a self-defense reaction to he is an expert pharmacologist. They don’t maintain his dignity as our mentor. He grow them that way any more. probably had to pinch himself at times to Scientific achievement is largely luck, Felix Lengfeld keep from kissing us. From that, a t least, and scholarship is largely hard work. The we were saved by his stern conception of real measure of a man is given bv the roster of his friends. How many of our great and nearly great his duty. There were no co-eds in the class. Lengfeld remained a t Chicago for about ten years. He must can match such a list as this: Stieglitz, E. C. Franklin, Moissan, have softened his heart while in that mellow atmosphere. Some Spring, Baekeland, Herty, Jacques Loeb, G. N. Lewis, Alonzo of his students from that period still speak affectionately of him Taylor, R . 1x7. Wood, Remsen, Slosson. I am just a little bit proud to find myself in such company. And he kicked R. W. Wood out of the chemistry department, telling him that he would never amount to anything in euperimental science. ARTHPK LACHMAS
BOOK REVIEWS Exact Colour Matching and Specifying. I,. BLIN DESBLEDS. zones of the solar spectrum. Light rays from the standard and 116 pages. 32 illustrations and diagrams. Technological and color under examination are directed upon the photo-electric cell, which is in circuit with a delicate galvanometer. From the Industrial Service, Paris. Price, $1.OO. tabulation of galvanometer readings the exact character of the There has always existed a wide gap between the fundamental color under examination may be determined and recorded. I n addition to a detailed description of this apparatus, the book facts of color production as applied by the physicist and the actual procedure of the textile colorist in the production of al- furnishes an extended discussion of its application and a rather most innumerable color effects upon cloth. One of the difficult condensed but readable discussion of color-matching and -recording. Like several other colorimetric devices, this apparatus problems of the teacher of textile coloring has been to bridge makes it possible to record with a high degree of accuracy the this gap and remove some of the obstacles which immediately character of any particular color in terms of wave lengths, and confront the endeavors of the physicist t o devise a system of scientifically accurate measurements which will eliminate the in this respect it may prove of considerable value in studying and recording colors already produced. vagaries of the human eye in color-matching and -recording. The author definitely states that photo-colorimetric dyeing is In this volume the author has endeavored to present an efficient industrial method of accurate color measurement and expedited if the dyer has a t his disposal: (1) a large number of color-matching through the use of the Toussaint photo-electric dyestuffs, many of which should be very pure; ( 2 ) a well-comphoto-colorimeter. This instrument involves the use of a photo- piled set of reference curves, established once for all; (3) a stuff electric cell so designed that it permits of two specimens to be to be dyed nearly the same as that of the given standard. A t the placed in succession and within a fraction of a second behind close of the volume he states that exactness and ease of applicaeach of six monochromatic filters which correspond to six typical tion must lead to its widespread adoption and success. It is to
