ENRIQUE MOLES* THE outstanding Spanish chemist of the present era is Enrique Moles, born a t Barcelona, July 25, 1883. Although his first advanced degree was Doctor of Pharmacy (Madrid, 1905), he soon turned his chief attention to inorganic and physical chemistry. He studied a t Munich and Leipzig (1908-10) and then, after two years as Professor of Inorganic Chemistry in the Pharmacy Faculty a t Madrid and also as Professor of Physical Chemistry a t the Laboratory for Physical Investigation, he went to Switzerland, first as Fellow a t Zurich (1912) and later (1915-17) as Fellow, then Privatdozent, a t Geneva,where, in 1916, he was awarded the degree of Docteur ès Sciences Physiques. In 1920 he was granted his Doctorate of Chemical Science a t Madrid. Since 1927 he has occupied the chair of Inorganic and Physical Chemistry in the Faculty of Chemical Sciences a t Madrid, and since 1931 he has also been Chief of Section a t the National Institute for Physics and Chemistry. In 1910 he published the first of his more than 150 papers that have appeared in the leading periodicals of Spain, Germany, England, France, Italy, and Holland. These have dealt with non-aqueous solutions, molecular volumes and additivity, constitution of hydrates, magneto-chemistry, inorganic complexes, etc. In particular, he has, since 1916, issued a series of fundamental studies, both critical and experimental, dealing with the atomic weights of bromine, fluorine, oxygen, nitrogen, sodium, iodine, carbon, sulfur, argon. This work has led to review not only of the values for these elements but also of those of hydrogen, potassium, chlorine, and silver. The most interesting item in this study was the demonstration that the values for the halogens obtained by physico-chemical methods and by purely chemical methods are concordant, a finding that closed
* See frontispiece.
the long discussion between the two schools headed respectively by Guye of Geneva and Richards of Harvard. Moles has definitelyestablished the value of the normal liter of oxygen and consequently of the normal molecular volume of all gases, a constant that frequently occurs in the fundamental formulas of atomistics. His results are accepted as standard in such works as International Critical Tables, Landolt-Börnstein, Tables annuelles internationales de Constantes. Prizes and subventions have been granted to him not only by Spanish organizations, but also by R. Academia dei Lincei of Rome, the Solvay Fund of Brussels, the van't Hoff Fund of Amsterdam. Honors have come to him in full measure: Spanish Academy of Sciences, National Council of Education, Vice President of the International Union of Chemistry, Permanent Commission of the Table of Constants of Physical Chemistry, former President and now General Secretary of the Spanish Society of Physics and Chemistry, General Secretary of the IXth International Congress of Pure and Applied Chemistry, Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, etc. He is a member of many chemical societies and has frequently represented Spain a t international conferences on chemistry. More than 40 doctorate theses have been prepared under his direction and 14 studies for admission to higher faculties have been supervised by him. Offers of chairs of physical chemistry a t Munich, Zurich, and Baltimore testify to his international reputation. He was or is collaborator in: Landolt-Börnstein, Tables annuelles, Journal de chimie physique, Zeitschrift fur physikalische Chemie, Anales de la sociedad española de fisica y química. The JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION may point with pride to its Foreign Editor for Spain. (Contributed by Ralph E. Oesper, University o f Cincinnati.)
