May, 1923
INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGINEERING CHEM€STBY
531
AMERICAN CONTEMPORARIES Frank Wigglesworth Clarke
elusive mushrooms to their lairs and devours them. “The Obituarv of an Undertaker” in Life. and the “Mormon Widow’s If a t one of the SOCIETY meetings you should note in the Lament” in The Galaxy are examples of his style a t odd moments. He early began to emerge into prominence, so we find a record lobby a man about five feet five inches in height, one hundred and ten pounds in weight, with pale blue eyes, little hair and most of him in Appleton’s “Cyclopaedia of American Biography,” of that under his ears, chewing his finger nails and apparently the first issue of “Who’s Who in America,” the first edition of “American Men of Science,” and other of absorbed in, thought, thcugh really most the biographical publications known to alert, and if on engaging him in conversathe elders. Together with Ben. Franklin, tion you find he speaks in a low tdne with a Chauncey Jerome, and other Yankees, lated and quite agreeable voice, lauded in my youth for their development using very well-chosen language, talking of the system of interchangeable parts in good sense, but with a mild undertone of mechanisms, Clarke was a pioneer efficiency gaiety, and you find him bright and enterexpert (though modem engineers believe taining and then you find him clever, he is they discovered the genus because they probably Frank Wigglesworth Clarke, wrote the label), for over forty years ago known wherever the masses of the atoms he f a d begun testing men’s work by the are considered or the chemistry of the unitheory of probabilities and the method of verse is studied. Should you join him a t least squares. He was the first to present lunch and when the waiter has served the a consistent theory of the evolution of the butter this man has said, “Take it away, elements which has withstood all subseplease,” and of the potatoes, “Take that quent developments. away also,” and should he be eating of Clarke has had many unique experiences. sweet potato and some one has remarked For ten years he constituted the entire to him, “Why I thought you did not like Committee membership of our SOCIETY’S potatoes,” he replies, “This is not potato, on Atomic Weights, created in 1892, from it is convolvulus,” then he surely is Clarke. which, in 1902, grew the Intetnational A rhymster of no mean facility, a punCommittee, over which he has ever since ster-for, like Lewis Carroll, words assume FRANKWIGGLES WORTK CLARKE presided. He is probably the only Amerito him many quaint forms and appear can and certainly the only Unistatian who in many droll contexts-a gossip who not only knows “everybody” but their forebears and descendants, has been invited to deliver a Memorial Address before The he is one of the men who has made conversation a t the Cosmos Chemical Society, and his Dalton address is a model of its His “Data of Geochemistry” is much more widely Club famous. Singularly, possessing a most retentive memory kind. and with ready command of all his accumulated information, sought than any other of the upwards of two thousand different publications issued by the United States Geological Survey. Clarke never seems able to recall any but pleasant things of those of whom he speaks. I n the fifty-four years of our ac- His “Constants of Nature” were among the earliest of these quaintance, during thirty of which we have been closely asso- records and he did them “all on his own.” Definite, systematic, original, and industrious, his output ciated, I have never known him to say a disagreeable thing of any person. Neither have I known him to praise any man in contributions to chemistry has been large and of high quality. He has received well-deserved recognition. He is the recipient to his face, but I have frequently heard him speak in high terms of praise of an absent man, and I know that many a of honorary degrees from several universities, foreign and Amerman has secured advancement in his profession through Clarke’s ican, is Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, Wilde medalist, assorecommendation, though the beneficiary has rarely known of ciate of foreign societies, and member of the National Academy of Sciences. He has conferred distinction on his profession and Clarke’s part in the affair. of which he was president. During all these years I have never known Clarke to laugh on this SOCIETY heartily, though he has frequently rippled, almost siiently, at CHARLESE. MUNROE a display or thought of wit or humor. Though rarely I have seen him vexed, I have never seen him angry. I n fact, I believe ;f he were to find himself angry he would be thoroughly ashamed of himself, and no other punishment could be so severe to one of Calendar of Meetings his breeding. He likes to be a t the Club as the papers are brought ie, and he has sometimes gotten on the nerves of the attach& American Electrochemical Society43rd Semiannual Meeting, of the Scientific Library by waiting around for the opening of New York City, May 3 to 5, 1923. the periodical mail, but his eagerness seems partly due to his American Association of Cereal Chemists-9th Annual ConvenSybaritic liking for the freshly calendered sheet and partly to tion, Sherman Hotel, Chicago, Ill., June 4 t o 9, 1923. his preferring to tell the news rather than have it told to himAmerican Leather Chemists’ Association-20th Annual Meeting, thus running true to form, for it’s an old saying, “You can always White Sulphur Springs, W. Va., June 7 to 9, 1923. tell a Harvard man but you can’t tell him much.” American Institute of Chemical Engineers-Summer Meeting, He is an amusing entertainer; no meeting of the Y. M. C. U. Wilmington, Del., June 20 to 23, 1923. or of Section Q of the A. A. A. S. was complete without a “number” from Clarke. His mosquito made even Howard “sit up and take American Society for Testing Materials-26th Annual Meeting, Atlantic City, N. J., week of June 25, 1923. notice.” He is fond of botanizing; and he eagerly pursues the
