PEN PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM FRANCIS HILLEBRAND, 1853-1925 The psychologists are telling us of late that a man's personal appearance bears no relation whatever to his mental capacity. So a t least it reaches the public through the popular prints. This is cheering gospel to some of us, a doctrine we would gladly believe. But since other people do not believe it, we know that a prepossessing appearance will command opportunity, and upon opportunity, development in no small measure depends; so that however little the physical make-up may have to do with original mental endowment, i t should have much to do with final attainment. Dr. Hillebrand was a man of distinguished appearance. Moderately spare of figure and lean of limb, he looked taller than he was; and while he had not the athletic frame and the glow of health that t+ of bodily vigor and abounding vitality, his massive head and shoulders conveyed an impression of solidity and dignity, an effect enhanced by a beard unique in its individuality. One might have said that he had been cast by nature for the rBle of Grand Duke in the human drama.
His Father a Remarkable Man Among those assets which count most in the race for success, some would give to ancestry a high rating. Here again Dr. Hillebrand was favored by fortune. His immediate forebears were persons of consequence; his grandfather "held a judicial position," and his father was unusually gifted. Born in Westphalia in 1821, the elder Hill$brand chose the profession of medicine and was educated in the best schools that Germany afforded-Gattingen, Heidelberg, and Berlin. In his youth he traveled extensively in the Orient, finally settling about 1850 in Honolulu, where, a few years later, he married an American wife. The young doctor soon showed himself a man of varied talents. In his own profession he became "perhaps the most prominent physician in the Islands." He interested himself in civic affairs, was appointed a member of Kmg Kamehameha's privy council, held several other important positions, and secured by his own personal efforts an adequate labor supply for the country. In the esthetic world he was a "fine musician," but of still greater importance from the present viewpoint, Dr. Wilhelm Hillebrand displayed marked ability in science. "An ardent botanist and horticulturist," he became deeply interested in the plant life of his adopted country, explored it thoroughly during a twenty years' residence, and finally completed what remains to this day the only comprehensive "Flora of the Hawaiian Islands" ! Aside from any debatable question of inheritance, the daily association and constant example of a man of such energy, ability, and initiative must have exercised a profound influence on the career of his son. 73
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An Adventurous Boyhood Born in Honolulu, young Hillebrand passed a rather adventurous boyhood. In 1865, as a lad of twelve years, he voyaged with his parents to China, Java, and India, where his father, acting in the capacity of Commissioner of Immigration, investigated labor conditions with a view to the needs of the Hawaiian sugar plantations. While on this mission, Hillebrand the elder "made extensive collections of living plants and birds, most of which reached their destination in fair shape and not a few became thoroughly at home in their new habitat."* "I have very vivid recollections," wrote Dr. Hillebrand in later years, "of helping to feed and care for the birds and deer on the seven weeks' trip from Hongkong to San Francisco by sailing vessel, a somewhat raugh and gloomy voyage." Several times the boy visited the United States, later crossing the country and the Atlantic to Europe, all before he was twenty. He loved to accompany his father on his botanical excursions "through the dense forests and up the lofty mountains of their island home, and was zealous in aiding his search for new and rare plants and flowers." "Not seldom," he says, "did I make such all-day excursions by myself or with a boy companion, sometimes at considerable risk." In this novel and entrancing environment, lovely islands clad in luxuriant tropical vegetation, set in a vast expanse of sea, the mystery of active volcanoes, the vestiges of a vanishing civilization, it seems rather strange that Hillebrand's youthful imagination was not enthralled. In later years, though he spoke pleasantly, $hen questioned, of these scenes of his childhood, they never seemed to come to his lips with that spontaneity which we expect of experiences that have left a deep, lasting, and delightful impression; reactions, one would say, of a man of rather distinctive tastes, whose dominant interest gradually overshadowed all others. His Tastes and Choice of a Career Certainly I should not have called him an out-door man in his middle years. Of his predilections in general Hillebrand says: "My father was a fine musician and botanist, though I did not inherit his tastes." He is speaking here of botany as a study. Of his choice of a profession, he has this to say: "Up to . . . the summer of 1872, I had shown no bent or aptitude, unless a liking for geography, travel, and history can be so called, for any line of study that pointed toward a choice of a profession or career. Mathematics I abhorred, and English composition was somethmg that there seemed little hope of my ever becoming the master of. My inability to get a working understanding of mathematics has been a serious handicap *Autobiographical sketch written by Hillebrand for the National Academy of Sciences.
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throughout my professional career. My actual study of English was limited to the merest elements, my father laying much greater stress upon the classics. While the study of the latter has been of much assistance and of no little cultural benefit, I cannot too much deplore the scant consideration that was given to English. My father, though himself a master of English, I think was inclined to believe that my later home would be in Germany, notwithstanding that all my youthful associations were with Americans and my predilections for America. This bias arose from the great preponderance of Americans over Europeans in Honolulu, from the fact that all my early teachers were Americans, that the language of the family was English, and that I had frequent association and correspondence with my mother's family in California and none with my father's except two of his brothers-one in California and one-in Honolulu, who married American wives. Out of this grew a strong intention to be and remain an American myself." "On arriving in Germany in 1872, it became necessary to choose a career. Having seen much of a physician's l i e through my father and step-grandfather Newcomb, medicine offered no charms. Law was still less to my likmg for the reason that I lacked utterly the mental qualifications of a successful lawyer. The engineering professions were excluded from consideration by reason of my weakness in mathematics. The outlook was unpromising. One day my father suggested chemistry-a possibility that had never occurred to me. In Honolulu I had learned some of the simplest elements of the science and had enjoyed the study. My father's suggestion appealed to me and I decided then and there to become a chemist or a t least to make a try a t becoming one." This is not quite the whole story. Many years ago, when Dr. Hillebrand was questioned about the matter by the writer, he began by saying: "I had always liked chemistry." That a man of his temperament should decide so momentous a choice on the spur of the moment, seems quite foreign to his character. More likely, it appears to me, his father's wise suggestion revealed to the young man a latent aspiration. An Exceptional Education The advantages of thorough preparation for a life work are probably more generally recognized by American students today than they were in Dr. Hillebrand's time. Where an occasional voice has been raised on the other side of the question, protesting the dangers of overtraining as a menace to initiative, it has been unconvincing. If a few men of great talent have succeeded with limited training, even geniuses like Willard Gibbs have not despised a long preliminary period of discipline. Hillebrand, whose professionaltrainmg was unusually complete, never regretted
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that fact; he simply deplored the lack of thoroughness in certain of his early studies. Schooling in "Latin, Greek, French, elementary mathematics, (English) composition, and spelling," the boy received at Punahou College, Honolulu, and a t Oakland, California. ' The same subjects, with the addition of German, were continued a t Cornell University for two years more. Then, in 1872, he sailed with the rest of his family for Germany where he was to spend the next six years in the study of chemistry and closely related sciences. From Heidelberg, where he first matriculated and where he won his degree, he doubtless derived his deepest inspiration. I t was here that hc studied with Bunsen, most influential of all his teachers, with Kirchhoff, Kopp, and Blum the mineralogist. Of Bunsen and Kirchhoff he spoke with special reverence in late^ life. It was a t Heidelberg, too, that Hillebrand met his youthful friend Norton, who proved an important factor in his early development. For three months prior to examination the two young men quizzed each other every evening until midnight, with the result that after five semesters Hillebrand attained his doctor's degree summa cum l a d e . His induction into the field of research was hardly less auspicious than his showing in the final examinations. His first paper, under the joint authorship of Hillebrand and Norton, was entitled: "Ueber metallisches Cer, Lanthan, und Didym." With characteristic generosity Hillebrand insisted in his autobiographical qotes that to Norton should have gone the greater credit. A second investigation, "Specifische warme Cers, Lanthans, und Didyms," executed b9 Hillebrand alone and published in Poggendorf's Annalen was given the honor of a translation in full in the Philosophical Magazine. "This research," says F. W. Clarke,* "fixed the valency of the metals and established their position in the classification of the elements. That the didymium of 1876 has since been proved to be a mixture of several closely related elements does not detract from the fundamental significance of the investigation." Hillebrand's experience in research was extended in a period of three semesters spent a t Strassburg, where he worked out the constitution of quinic acid under Fittig, and the crystallography of one of its derivatives with the aid of Groth. These four papers of his student days form a remarkably creditable record, as any one who knows student work would admit. That the organic field "did not appeal" to Hillebrand is another indication of his distinctive tastes, but the sojourn a t Strassburg seems to have been profitable for its broadening influence on the character of the man and specifically because it brought him into contact with Groth and Rosenbusch, whose specialties, crystallography and "microscopical petrog-
* Biographical Memoir of William Francis HiUebrand. National Academy of Sciences. BiographicalMemoirs. Val. XII. 2nd Memoir, 1925.
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raphy," were so intimately related to his own. Several years earlier (1873) a t Heidelberg, Hillebrand "met and saw much of" Edward S. Dana, afterward better known as a mineralogist than a physicist, and thus his "attention was first drawn to mineralogy." Following the same general direction, now "fully intent on returning soon to America, and impressed with the opportunities for young chemists as assayers in western mining regions," Hillebrand finished his studies with a course in metallurgy and assaying a t the famous mining academy in Freiburg. While he published nothing in this final year, the work a t Freiberg gave him a view of the industrial aspects of one of the numerous branches of chemistry, and his associations there proved later a distinct commercial asset. With the year 1878 his student life closes. During all this time Hillebrand had, apparently, no financial worries to distract his mind, no necessity to devote energy needed in study to the task of raising funds. Possibly this involved some loss in self-reliance; but, while there is no evidence that he ever inherited any important estate from his father, the family income at this time was seemingly adequate, that fortunate mean between poverty and riches which provides amply for travel and study and contributes most to the mental development of the individual, without entailing luxury and threatening possible ruin.
Joins the Geological Survey In the fall of 1878 Hillebrand returned to America and began looking for a position. Passing over the subseqneni months of tedious waiting, as he himself would gladly have done, we find Rim in the summer of 1879 in Leadville, where he had connected himself with a firm of assayers. It was in the course of this work that he became acquainted with S. F. Emmons, then in charge of the Rocky Mountain Division of the recently formed U. S. Geological Survey. As an outcome of the acquaintance, Emmons, within a year, offered Hillebrand a position as mineral chemist. Since this was just what the young man had wanted ever since he had read of the newly organized Survey, he naturally accepted. In Denver, the headquarters of the division, he lived and worked for five years. It was during these years that he married Martha May Westcott (September, 1881) and that his first son, William Arthur, was born. The younger son, Harold Newcomb, was born in Washington. At his first opportunity evidently, Hillebrand took up research again and quite appropriately his six publications belonging to this period have to do with new minerals; four of them were joint productions with Whitman Cross, geologist and petrographer. In 1885 Hillebrand, still retaining his connection with the Survey, removed to Washington where he remained in the government service to the end of his life.
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Personal Traits I t was on joining the ranks of the Geological Survey sixteen years later that I first met Dr. Hillebrand. His recent book on Rock Analysis had created a favorable impression and had aroused my interest in its author. I found him cordial and modest, without a trace of the conscious superiority that might be expected of a Grand Duke. As I came to know him better I discovered in him almost none of the contradictions in character which the biographers are so fond of exploiting. Honesty was one of his outstanding qualities. The scrupulous probity with which, as Dr. Waters* tells us, he administered the public funds in his capacity of Chief Chemist at the Bureau of Standards is exactly what would have been expected by those who knew him. Fortunately, that kind of honesty is not so uncommon as pessimists would have us believe. Much rarer is the intellectual honesty characteristic of Hillebrand. To state the exact truth was to him always more important than to make out a forcible case. A man of the highest integrity and conscientiousness, he had in full measure those attributes of thoroughness and accuracy which have come to be thought of as the best German traits. A strict self-critic, I think he saw his own weaknesses rather clearly, but he was inclined to view them with an eye of morbid severity. When he says: "Mathematics I abhorred," and "there seemed no prospect of my ever mastering English style," he is probably suffering from a keen sense of his failure to reach in thdse subjects the high level he attained in others. His lack of aggressiveness, resulting from a consciousness of his own shortcomings, and his rather melancholy disposition inclining a t times to petulance, were, I believe, largely due to a lack of robust health. Clarke and Waters both speak of Hillebrand's generosity toward coworkers and subordinates. The writer, who had the privilege of working with him, still remembers with pleasure, after a lapse of thirty years, the quality of his cooperation. The valuable gift of presenting a subject, easily, clearly, and concisely was in large measure denied him, and he rarely trusted himself to speak without notes; indeed he habitually read his papers from the manuscript. From his appearance on the platform one might easily have derived the mistaken impression that Hiiebrand was slow. Both physically and mentally, in familiar environment, he was quite alert. In the study of a scientific article he grasped the main points very quickly and his activity and industry in the laboratory were undeniable; but the great amount of work he accomplished was rather the result of intelligent planning, always in the same field, for after his student days he showed little inclination to stray from one type of research to another.
* Science. 41, 251
(1925). See also
J. Am. Chem. So:., 47, 53 (1925).
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The specialist, as we all know, is apt to be not only a man of particular tastes, but of restricted outlook and narrow sympathies. That Hiebrand's tastes did not cover a wide range, his own words have made clear. He had some interest in music, but could not be called a devotee. He liked fishing, but was by no means an enthusiastic sportsman, nor, after his youth a t least, an ardent lover of nature. Never a hail-fellow-weU-met, he enjoyed a game of skat with a few cronies. A man of the intellectual type, he did not show in his conversation the wide interests of the omnivorous reader or the general philosopher. He was in fact pretty strictly devoted to his work. On the whole Dr. Hillebrand's character was singularly consistent, but one aspect of it comes as a surprise; instead of an outlook in keeping with the life and tastes of the specialist, he showed a refreshing breadth. If he knew little of his neighbor's field, he was not disposed to assume there was little to know, to indulge in a supercilious attitude toward it or to make slighting remarks concerning it; he showed an unexpected sense of the importance of the vast world outside his own immediate consciousness. To this attitude of sympathetic tolerance, inherited tendencies, association with a broad-minded father, and an exceptional education may all have been contributing factors. Perhaps it would not be out of place to raise a question in the pages of the JOURNAL OX.CHEMICAL EDUCATION: HOWfar is the narrowness in our modem specialists due to defects in their education, and how far could fhey be corrected by a judicial attitude on the part of the teacher, not only toward controversial questions but especially toward departments of knowledge other than his own? The characteristics of Dr. Hillebrand's mind, freedom from bias, honesty, reliability, thoroughness, and accuracy, are plainly reflected in his work.
His Work Of the eighty-eight articles that constitute Hillebrand's published work, all but the earliest are confined to the analytical field, and nearly all deal with the composition of rocks and minerals or with the methods by which the composition is determined. His many papers on the chemical aspects of new mineral species and varieties form an important contribution to mineralogy. Mineral analysis, challenging the chemist with its many rare elements and unusual combinations, demanding a broad knowledge and a faculty of getting on with defective methods by the free use of systematic corrections, is the most difficult of all analytical fields, and was always peculiarly attractive to one of Hillebrand's tastes and training. While composition and formula, in addition to crystallography, are naturally uppermost in the investigation of new minerals, relations of broader significance are not wanting in Hillebrand's papers. As examples
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we may cite the concentration of barium and strontium in the rocks of the Rocky Mountains, constituting thus a distinctive "geographic zone"; and the occurrence of nitrogen as an essential part of the mineral uraninite, establishing the "first discovery" of that element "in the primitive crust of the earth." It was in the field of mineral analysis that the most dramatic episode in Hillebrand's career occurred. It had to do with the gas liberated in the solution of uraninite, the rare mineral just mentioned. The facts of the case have been fully detailed by Clarke in his biographical memoir, hut his omission of one significant aspect of the incident may perhaps serve as an excuse for a brief review of i t here. From the chemical behavior of the gas and from a study of its spectrum, Hillehrand and Hallock had pronounced it nitrogen. A few years later Sir William Ramsay, while searching for natural sources of argon, learned of one of Hillebrand's work on uraninite, and, feeling doubt that a gas liberated by the action of sulfuric acid could be nitrogen, he purchased a sample of the mineral and tested its hehavior himself. The gas he obtained proved almost entirely free from nitrogen. In it he found, besides hydrogen, argon and a new gas which proved to be helium, hitherto known only in the spectrum of the sun. A subsequent examination of a portion of Hillebrand's own specimens of uraninite revealed also argon and helium in addition to a considerable percentage of nitrogen. In his failure to make the discovery himself Hillebrand saw a great dpportunity missed. "There's where I lost my chance," be once said to the %riter in regretful allusion to the subject. In addition to that he, who prided himself on his accuracy, doubtless felt that his powers of observation had been discredited. Yet his observations were correct as far as they went; the nitrogen lines were dearly identified in the spectrum and the gas was found to diminish in volume when sparked with oxygen over caustic alkali or with hydrogen over dilute acid. On the other hand, the analytical data indicated that the density of the gas should have been much lower than nitrogen,* while many unmapped lines were noted in the spectrum. The spectra of gases were known to be modified by changes in pressure and other physical conditions and to such variations the new lines were attributed. That these observations ought to have been mentioned in his article, Hillebrand later acknowledged. To many his failure to prosecute the investigation to its logical conclusion will appear an unpardonable mistake. But the Survey laboratory, where the work was done, was not purely a research institution. "The chemical investigation," said Hillebrand, "had consumed a vast amount of time, and I felt strong scruples about taking more from my regular
* The summations of his analyses were all too high, hut it was not until Ramsay's discovery was announced that this interpretation occurred to Hi1lehrand.-The wriln.
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routine work." Every experienced investigator knows that, no matter how expert the operator, any new line of research, especially such a one as the handling of gases, demands a long, laborious apprenticeship to insure a reasonable measure of success. And not only Hillebrand's associates but his official superiors, also, however prompt they may have been to acclaim Ramsay's discovery, would have been slow to see in a little gas from an out-of-the-way mineral a promising field for study; indeed it is more than doubtful if they would have countenanced further investigation. His Analytical Methods Undoubtedly Hillebrand regarded mineral analysis as an important part of his work; new minerals continued to interest him as long as he lived; but as one who knew him well, the writer feels confident that it was his analytical methods that most engrossed him. It was not the methods that were worked out as a necessary step in the determination of the chemical nature of the minerals; rather, the minerals served as material in working out the analytical methods with which his name will always be linked. Yet a glance through the titles of his publications will show that his reputation does not depend on new methods. The possibilities of new developments in this old field had of course been considerably reduced before his time; but recent literature shows they are by no means exhausted. The truth is that Hillebrand was not a great innovator. He was not inclined to hlaze new trails, but in selectlng the best of existing paths and in smoothing and straightening the one of his ohoice he had few equals. During the early nineteen hundreds one of the needs especially felt in the system of rock analysis was a simpler and more reliable method for fluorine. As far back as 1895 we find Hillebrand warning analysts against the use of "fluoriferous hydrogen peroxide in the estimation of titanium," yet it remained for George Steiger* a dozen years later to show how this reaction of hydrofluoric acid with peroxide of titanium could be used as the foundation of a new and better method for fluorine. In general, the significance of the first step in a scientific undertaking can hardly be overestimated, but in the field of scientific measurement, accuracy is of such obvious importance that improvements in many cases may rank on a par, or nearly so, with the original invention. In the preface of the recent book, "Applied Inorganic Analysis," published under the joint authorship of Hillebrand and Lundell, it is pointed out that the great weakness in our analytical systems has been in the separation of the elements from each other rather than in reducing them afternard to weighable form. Here Hillebrand was a master. The development of his book, "Some Principles and Methods of Rock Analysis," which first appeared in 1900, has been traced in detail by Clarke. *The method has heen greatly improved by H. E. Merwin.
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Among the principles exemplified in this treatise, perhaps double precipitation in gravimetric analysis is most important. While the principle was by no means new, it would probably be correct to say that before Hillebrand's time, the ideal gravimetric method was one that aimed a t an optimum combination of conditions suitable to all proportions of the elements to be separated. Hillebrand taught that such conditions rarely exist, and that a much saner procedure was the resort to double precipitation, in which the first operation brings one always to the same case, and one easily handled, namely, a great excess of one element and a minimum amount of the other. Corrections in scientific measurement have long been in use, though less frequently adopted in chemistry than in other sciences where the mechanical factor is more pronounced. Hillebrand taught the general use of corrections even in many of the commonest determinations. It used to be true and probably remains so today that analytical chemistry was taught so exclusively as a means to an end that accuracy was to a great extent defeated. What is needed is more knowledge of the analytical processes on the part of the operator, for after the first a u d e apprenticeship of the student is over, the important errors are chiefly chemical rather than mechanical. Dr. Hillebrand, who was not lacking in deftness, laid very little stress on his skill of hand. It was experience that he emphasized. During his stay a t the Geological Survey, where his methods were largely perfected. there was always a considerrlble amount of routine work which Hillebrand and his associates were called upon to do; and while this had its obviously undesirable side, i t was used by him to good purpose in trying out his methods under a variety of conditions. Hardly any of these methods, to be sure, was devised by him, but they have been so judiciously selected and so carefully revised and systematized that they have become in a very true sense his methods. After his appointment as Chief Chemist of the Bureau of Standards in 1909 the methods continued to occupy much of his time and finally reached their present form in Bull. U. S. Geol. Survey No. 700, entitled, "Analysis of Silicate and Carbonate Rocks." Much of the material in this book has a considerably wider application than its title implies. Either unchanged or little modified, the methods have a general usefulness. It was therefore a perfectly logical step which led to "Applied Inorganic Analysis," undertaken with and completed by G. E. F. Lundell, a book that promises to take a high.place among works of its class.
Honors Hillebrand lived to be acclaimed one of the foremost authorities in his chosen field; his methods are widely used by analysts, teachers, and in-
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vestigators, and they are said to have been adopted by all the important geological surveys of the world. In his election to membership in the most important learned societies in America, the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, and in his elevation to the presidency of the American Chemical Society, his contemporaries expressed their judgment of his achievements. He was a recipient of the Chandler medal from Columbia University. A recognition peculiarly appropriate to his work was the degree of Doctor of Natural Philosophy conferred upon him by the University of Heidelberg in 1925, just fifty years after his graduation from that venerable institution. Such was the verdict of his times. And when we consider the enormous superstructure of chemical science which rests upon analftical foundations, we feel confident that so long as present trends in the science continue, his work will not cease to have significance.
