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greater public appreciation would enlarge their power of acSOCIETY may complishment, and our AMERICAN CHEMICAL well give itself the task of bringing about a wider acquaintance with the achievements of our science, in order that our citizens may come to look upon the work of the chemist as having equal importance and merit with other work the methodci of which they better understand. L. H. BAEKELAND
It Pays to Attend Meetings ANY of our readers again come to the question, c8n I afford to attend the approaching meeting of the AMERIC~N CHEMICAL SOCIETY? The real question is; can you afford not to do so? We recently heard a man who attends svlch meetings with regularity and whose interests are so broad that he attends many divisions, say that a t the Pittsburgh meeting he heard a paper and the discussion which followed on a subject somewhat remote from his own, and while he listened to the discussion he realized that a similar attack could be made upon another problem. The result htts been thousands of dollars spent by outside interests upon research in his laboratory. As has been repeatedly emphasized, the discussions in the meetings, in the hallways, and in the lobbies of hotels cannot be adequately reported, and most of them never find their way into print. They are, however, invaluable to the man who would keep abreast of his science. The indications are that the Washington meeting will be the largest in the history of the SOCIETY.The people with whom you want to discuss B troublesome point will be there. The meeting has been so arranged that there will be time to confer with people, to see the wonderful laboratories in Washington, and to make of that week a combination of business and pleasure which cannot Eail to make large returns upon your investment of time and money.
Settled by Decree CCORDING to the daily press, the governor of North A Carolina does not believe that man descended from the monkey or any other animal, and therefore a decree has gone forth that evolution as it is popularly understood shall not be tiaught in the schools of North Carolina. Notwithstanding this decree, we surmise that the development of the higher from the lower forms of life will continue, and perhaps may even reach the place where evolution will be properly understood by those who now refuse to give the subject sufficient study to enable them to discuss it intelligewy. At all times men have been wont to settle things by decree, quite without regard to natural laws. There is the instance of a state legislature the lower house of which passed a law that thereafter x should be 3 and not the 3.1416 which the mathematicians insisted upon. These instances are in a class with the act of another state legislature, which refused to grant an appropriation for the purchase of books for the state library on the logical ground that no one had yet read all the books in the library. Then there was the congressman who was firm in his belief that lime juice is made from lime water. But if we continue the examples further some one will accuse us of perpetrating old jokes. Some things simply oannot he settled by decree. The lbws of science are among them.
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Encouraging Signs LTHOUGH there are still people who will argue that as A soon as scientific work begins to yield results that appear practicable it should be discontinued, and we have those who have no patience with research that is not directly aimed a t profit-producing results, it is becoming increasingly evident to all that industrial progress depends upon the cumulative value of those various small bits of truth gradually added to the whole by so-called pure research. While it may be that if theories are of any value they will ultimately lead to some practical use, we all rejoice that the campaign on behalf of fundamental work is constantly bringing fresh results that are most encouraging. A short time ago a gift of the General Electric Company to the Cavendish Laboratory to aid in pure research was announced and applauded. Now comes an appropriation by the International Education Board, one of the projects of tho Rockefeller interests, to the laboratory at the University ol Copenhagen, where Niels Bohr has done his remarkable work upon the structure of the atom which bids fair to revolutionize many of our scientific theories. Heretofore the Danish Government and a group of private individuals have maintained the institute. The forty thousand dollar appropriation was voted following a series of lectures by the eminent physicist a t Yale University. The money is to be used in adding about ten rooms to the buildings so that the institute may be in position to receive and offer proper working conditions to such foreign physicists as are qualified and may be accepted to workunder Dr. Bohr’s direction. It will also supply the means whereby equipment for the further investigations of Dr. Bohr upon the infra-red region of the spectrum and the investigation of X-ray spectra may go forward. Physicists from the United States, India, South Africa, and Australia have already applied for permission to work under Dr. Bohr when the laboratory is enlarged. There comes, then, to the Institute for Theoretical Physics of the University for Copenhagen support for the work of a man who is an acknowledged leader in his field. And the endowment of an individual, so to speak, who thus shows his qualifications for leadership, is quite in line with what scientists have constantly urged. We all know men who are required to teach or to perform some special work in an industrial laboratory who would constitute one of the best investments that could be made if supplied with funds and facilities and given carte blanche to go their own way. While the importance of pure research has long been acknowledged in England and other foreign countries, we are gradually approaching a time in our own country when such work will be adequately endowed. When R. A. Millikan was recently awarded the Edison Medal of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, he took occasion to emphasize the trend toward the recognition of fundamental work, in the follo~~-ing words: For, in the last analysis, the thing in this world which is of most supreme importance, indeed the thing which is of most practical value to the race, is not, after aU, useful discovery or invention, but that which lies far back of them, namely, “the way men think”-the kind of conceptions which they have about the world in which they live and their own relations t o it. It is this expanding of the mind of man, this clarifying of his conceptions through the discovery of truth which is the immediate object of all studies in the field of pure science. Behind that object, however, is the conviction that human life will ultimately be enriched by every increase in man’s knowledge of the way in which nature works, since obviously the first step in the beneficent control of nature is a thorough understanding of her.
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And if you wish to see the practical result of ‘ think,” look a t the difference between our own ci
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the static civilization of Asia, where Nirvana is the goal of human life and s large fraction of the population reaches it quickly through starvation. Why is it that “fifty years of Europe is better than a cycle of Cathay?” Is it not simply because in certain sections of the world, primarily those inhabited by the Nordic race, a certain set of ideas has got a start in man’s mind -the ideas of progress and responsibility? And these ideas have come about, I think, because in a few sections of the earth men have been led t o follow simply the urge t o know. First, t o know this earth geographically, to explore it clear to the North Pole and t o the South Pole, even when they knew there was not the slightest prospect of growing wheat or potatoes there. But now the days of geographical exploration are gone, and yet it is the same urge which leads on the descendants of these voyagers into the unknown-the astronomer to explore the heavens, however useless that may be; the physicist to study the properties of matter and radiant energy whether he sees any immediate use for his results or not; the biologist to delve as far as he can into the secrets of life and organic growth.
Vol. 16, No. 4
Wanted : An Endowment T H E rapid development of chemistry, particularly new
branches of the science, constantly brings to those responsible for the finances of the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY new demands for support, which often cannot be given. Scientific men not only provide the papers and discussion, but must also 6nance the publication of their work. This is a condition which seldom confronts other groups; and, while it is becoming a well-established state of affairs, it seems obvious that unless endowments can be secured for scientific publication, the development of science itself must be arrested. We refer particularly to the publication of those all-important papers on fundamental topics which never have been and never can be expected to be self-supporting. Such problems are customarily met by securing large enAmong the outstanding features of American support for dowments from men or organizations more far-sighted than research may be mentioned the extensive list of fellowships many of their contemporaries and therefore willing to help and scholarships now available to students of various quali- finance scientific publication. Why can we not find some easy fications. In order that those who desire to engage in such way eventually to provide our own endowment? Suppose study may have a t hand a concise catalog, the National everyone interested in chemistry could see his way clear to Research Council has issued Bulletin 38 in which are given provide a bequest to the AMERICAN CHEMICALSOCIETYas a the names of institutions where these inducements are part of its endowment for scientific publication. We have no offered, together with brief indications as to the subject vital statistics upon which to make prediction, but it is our where restricted to any particular science or sciences, the belief that had such a plan been followed from the inception qualifications required of applicants, the conditions of tenure, of the SOCIETY there might now be a substantial sum yielding and the stipend when specified. This bulletin is cross in- interest to be added to our appropriations for publication. dexed by a list of fellowships bearing special names, another It is also reasonable to assume that chemists generally would list of industrial corporations and trade associations support- recognize such benefits as would accrue to them from the ing fellowships, and a subject index. It is encouraging to note SOCIETY and would be willing to make some slight acknowlthat thirty-five industrial corporations and nineteen trade edgment in the manner suggested. associations are here listed and that under chemistry fifty-five fellowships and forty-five educational institutions are given in addition to twenty-eight fellowshipsunder industrial research. The Rockefeller Foundation, the donor of a series of fellowships in physics and chemistry under the auspices of the Silver Research National Research Council, has renewed this grant for a second five-year period, has provided a group of fellowships NNOUNCEMENT has been made that extensive rein the medical sciences, a third in the biological sciences, and searches looking t o new uses for silver are to be combeginning with 1925 a fourth group for research in mathe- menced at the experiment station of the Bureau of Mines at matics. Reno, Nevada. This station is purposely placed in close Surely research is coming into its own in America, and we proximity to silver producers, has the support of the Unimust lend whatever support we can t o increase its prestige, versity of Nevada, and is so equipped that i t is believed the broad scope upon which it is undertaken, and encourage initial steps in the research can be taken to advantage at that the best qualified youth of the land to choose research as a point. It is a problem of great interest to silver producers as career. well as to those who regard the metal as a raw material and prepare it for sale in its various fabricated forms. The problem is therefore both one of consumption and production. New Technical Procedure When new alloys are ready for close examination, there will i‘PAKhTION of materials by adsorptive charcoal with be an opportunity for a further bond between the East and s t h e subsequent removal of the Dactions by displace- the West, for the center of silver consumption appears to lie ment from the interface of the charcoal offers a new pro- along the Atlantic Seaboard somewhere between Philadelphia cedure which has already demonstrated its value in the puri- and Boston. Here are t o be found numerous plants, some fication of insulin. This particular process avoids the great with laboratories undoubtedly willing to share their data losses of insulin that obtained with the older methods, and and experience and t o place their trained personnel and unique material valued at twelve hundred dollars was saved in one facilities at the disposal of the Bureau of Mines so that the week in tl comparatively small plant by the application of greatest possible results may be obtained from Government this method to the supernatant liquid from the isoelectric appropriations. Close touch must be maintained between precipitation. I n this case benzoic acid is ured to displace the research laboratories in Reno and the shops of the silver the insulin from the interface of the charcoal, and this ad- users where new alloys must be given a practical trial, or norptive method effectively separates the insulin from the in a number of other consuming industries where details of inass of gland material resulting from the maceration of the shop practice and the performance of metals in service must be studied by those responsible both for the research and for pancreas. A procedure which yields seven times the ordinary yield of the utilization of these new alloys of silver. We are interested in the success of this work, believe it t o be a final product is worthy of note. Purification by fractional displacement on charcoal may soon take its place in other in competent hands, and await with interest results which industries along with fractional crystallization and frac- may be expected through the application of the- scient3fic method to this problem. tional distillation.
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