892
INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
Vol. 15, No. 2
Some Cartoons of van’t Hoff’ By Ralph H. McKee DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK, N. Y.
N T H E Dutch periodicals, particularly of the weekly type, it is customary to cartoon professorial and scientific men in the public eye equally with those prominent in political life. Professor van’t Hoff was a man of particular note and as well one whose name was connected with a number of items of “news” type. Accordingly, he was perhaps more often cartooned than other Dutch scientists. I wish to discuss one series of five by the Dutch cartoonist Braahensiek, and a multiple cartoon whose authorship is obscure but which was gotten up at the suggestion of Prof. Ernst Cohen, van’t Hoff’s success or a t the University of Utrecht. The five cartoons by Brnahensiek had as their occasion van’t Hoff’s leaving the Universitv of Amsterdam and Holland to accept the new position created for him at the University of Berlin, a t the then unprecedented yearly salary for a professor of chemistry, of 40,000 marks. The cartoons are based on the old fairy tale of the fisherman and his wife as given by Grimm. YOU will recall how the fisherman sought favors of the talking man-
fish he had befriended, a typical conversation being as follows :
I
PROF. VAN? HOFF: “Fish, 0 Fish of the sea, FISH:
Bring me an appointment as a professor.” “It is donel” (1879)
PROF.VAN’T HOFF: “Fish, 0 Fish of the sea,
Make me a member of the Order of ‘Nederlandschen Leeuw.’ ” (Order of Dutch “Immortals”)
1 Presented before the Section of History of Chemistry a t the 64th Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Pittsburgh, Pa., September 4 t o 8, 1922.
Fisherman: “ 0 man of the sea! Come listen to me, For Alice, my wife, The plague of my life, Hath sent me to beg a boon of theel” Fish:
“Well, what does she want?”
Fisherman:
“Ah!
Fish:
“Go home, she is king already.”
The second series of van’t Hoff cartoons had as its origin the twenty-five year celebration of the passing of the examination for the Ph.D. degree by van’t Hoff. At noon of December 19, 1899, in Rotterdam, was the formal celebration with its proper speeches. In the evening at the Van der Velde restaurant the family of van’t Hoff, together with a large group of more intimate friends, gathered to celebrate in a more informal way. Here there was shown the multiple cartoon due to Prof. Ernst Cohen, a favorite pupil of Professor van’t Hoff. Below the small pictures you will note a number of names. These are the signa-, tures of those present a t the celebration. After these had signed the original it was given to Mrs. van’t Hoff. Those present PROF.VAN’T HOFF: “Fish, 0 Fish of the sea, Bring meanew laboratory received lithographed FISH:
FISB:
M y wife wants t o be king.”
“It is done! Here is the insignia.” (1895)
building.” “ I t is donel”
(1892)
PROF.VAN’T HOFF: “Fish, 0 Fish of the sea,
-------
FISH:
$1
“Have I not done enough? Adieul”
February, 1923
INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGINEERING CHEMIXTRY
reproductions such as the copy used by the present writer. Among the signatures more easily recognized are those of I-If work gave him much pleasure he would show more of it. (van’t Hoff was not a hard worker in his university days.) 2-He is, let him have his pledge, in the Australian group the third. (van’t Hoff and two other students, Janse and Roord a Smit, who planned to seek their fortune in Australia, often met on‘ Saturday evenings a t a certain restaurant t o discuss their future doings.) 3-A ctivity and isomerism never leave his desk. Then he grasps his pen with eagerness and writes down “Tetrahedra.” (A reference to his introduction of t h e concept of optical isomerism, 1874.) 4-Laboratory a t Utrecht, Holland. (Professor Cohen succeeded him a s head of this laboratory.) 5-Olympus here he mounts on this noble Pegasus. Herr Kolbe looks a t him in astonishment, and then there comes an awful crash. (“Pegasus” is a reference t o the fact t h a t a t the time van’t Hoff’s “Chemistry in Space” was published, van’t Hoff was a professor in a veterinary college. Kolbe, then one of the leaders of the time, considered “Chemistry in Space” as foolishness ) 6-Old laboratory a t Amsterdam. (This laboratory was outgrown and in 1892 van’t Hoff moved t o the new laboratory. See Item IO.)
193
Cohen, Hoogewerff, Spring, Rooseboom, Bredig, Ostwald, van Laar, Meyerhoffer, Abegg, and Lorenz. 7-Often in his small corner he stands looking a t his osmosismeter with its enclosed membranes. The pressure in the plants did not leave him free until he explained PV = RT. (“Dilute solutions obey the gas laws.”) 8-How pleasant is this youngster’s game; they are in mobile equilibrium. B u t Enally the seesaw goes down, even without “maximum work.” (Berthelot held t h a t the reaction evolving the maximum heat would be the reaction taking place. van’t Hoff held t h a t other factors were the determining factors.) 9-The complicated formula was no joke to him, even if i t was dark to others as it flowed from his inkwell. (van’t Hoff. like present-day physical chemists, was often given t o using complicated mathematical formulas. His formula for osmotic pres~ u r econtained forty-one letters.) 10-New laboratory a t Amsterdam. (The “Institute” built in 1892.) 11-As the ocean contents warmed, what happened was not clear, until van’t Hoff opening his window found that Nature had brought him a gift. (A reference to van’t Hoff’s solution of the way in which the German potash beds had been formed )
TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARYCARTOON
By STEPHEN0. ANDROS,A.B., E.M. Second edition, 1922. Petroleum Extension University, Fort Wayne, Ind., 198 pp., 95 illustrations. Price, $3.75.
Fuel Oil in Industry.
This volume has evidently been written with the idea of presenting the subject of fuel oil and its utilization in such a manner that the person having little or no training in engineering, mathematics, or chemistry can grasp the subject without difficulty. It is unfortunate that this method of presentation has not been followed as consistently as it might have been. This has been due, for the most part, to the fact that many articles relating to fuel oil have been inserted in the book, word for word, without undergoing the necessary simplifying translation. As an example of this, the first part of the book explains what the symbols for hydrogen and carbon are and how these elements unite with oxygen in definite proportions, while later on the chapter on colloidal fuel is full of words such as “colloid,” “Brownian movement,” “fixateur,” and “peptization,” accompanied by little or no explanation. The proofreading of the book has not been done as well as it should have been. Most of the errors are not serious, but it is certainly misleading when the columns for “Saybolt Time” and “Redwood Time” are reversed in the reference table for conversion of viscometer readings, and when a table on boiler efficiencies mentions ten per cent excess oil supply, when air supply is meant.
12-van’t Hoff Laboratory, Berlin. (About 1897.)
The subject matter of the book has been arranged in a logical and convenient form. The first halE of the book deals with the principles of oil combustion, the physical and chemical properties of fuel oil, the storage and distribution of the oil, and the furnaces and burners used for combustion. The second half takes up the specific industrial uses for fuel oil. The chapter on fuel-oil burners is particularly complete, and the description of the various types is very clear. The later chapters on industrial uses give general descriptions of the various industries as well as the more specific application of fuel oil to those industries. The book is well illustrated, well bound, and is printed on a good grade of paper. Despite the obvious defects which have been mentioned, this book should be useful to those seeking a general description of fuel oil and its uses in our industries. ALFREDR. POWELL New buildings and laboratories, constituting a department for chemical instruction which in size and equipment is second only to that of the largest American institutions, have been opened by the Technical College of Stockholm. The dedication ceremony was performed by the King of Sweden in the presence of a large assembly of prominent educators and men of affairs. The chemical department includes four laboratories devoted to research, and instruction in organic, inorganic, and technical chemistry, and electrochemical processes.
