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M ARCH, 1931
SOME INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS OF CHEMISTS' G u w ~ v u J. s ESSE~EN, 73 NEWBURY STREET, BOSTON, M A S S A C ~ S E T T S
It is a commonplace saying that science is international and as an abstract statement most chemists would he inclined to agree with it. The majority of our personal contacts, however, are regional or national in character rather than international, and one cannot help he interested therefore in observing the reactions of one hundred and seventy-six chemists as they meet in an international conference representing twenty-four nations of Europe, North and South America. Australia. and Japan, but with the conspicuous absence of Russia. Right a t the Outset one big problem forces itself on our attention and that is the political one. To discuss i t in any detail, however, would lead Us SO far astray that we must be content a t this time with mere recognition t h a t it exists. Indirectly, however, i t had a bearing on the place chosen for the two international chemical meetings which were held in LiCge in September. The Year 1930 marks the one hundredth anniversary of the independence of Belgium and it was fittingly celebrated by holding two World's Fairs, one a t Antwerp and the other a t Li6ge. These expositions drew many meetings of an international character to their respective cities. The question naturally arises why, in a country with an area less than that of the two New England states, Connecticut and Massachusetts, should it be necessary t o have two World's Fairs. The answer is to be found in the rivalry between the Flemish and French sections of Belgium. This was well illustrated by the reception t o the delegates offered by the de Vilk in Antburgomaster at the werp. After an unusually appropriate speech in French, he felt it necessary to repeat i t in Flemish. *Presented before the Northeastern Section, Chemical Society, Boston, Massaehu. setts, November, 14, 1930. Nore: The material for this paper was supse3t.d by at L~ ~ i ~ i 6 .cm ~ o~g r e sde Chimie Indurtnelle at Liege, Relawm, Sewember 7-13 19.10' and at L= Dixieme conference hiernatidnal d; Cldmie of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. September 14-20,
$830.
Of the two conferences, that of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, which came the second week, was by far the more important. Its business and technical sessions were ddightfully interspersed with social events. In fact the meeting really opened on Sunday with a reception to the delegates and their families. ~h~ ~ ~ t ~union ~ of~ pure t and i ~ ~ ~ ~ chemistry l i ~ isd organized into a Bureau, a Council, and a body of delegates. ~h~ B~~~~~ is composed of the ,,icepresidents and the past presidents. To fom the council, each nation is entitled to a .,*,in number of councilors, the number varying with the country, and in addition each nation is entitled to send a certain number of delegates, ~h~~~delegates are supposed t o attend the meetings of the cOundl and can take part in the discussions but the vateof any particular countn,is ~ountedonly as the number of councHAELEs L. REESE Of the du cilors, pant company is the ~~~~i~~ vice. president of the union.
The first meeting of the Council was quite dramatic, It was the first one since were to be the war at which the present but, when the meeting was called This to order, there were no until some one excited much pointed out that the Germans could not very well attend until a formal motion was passed admitting them, With this detail attended to, two of the members Germans but after were sent to find much searching they returned without success. Finally, about half an hour later. the delegation arrived, evidently after much hurrying on their part. A spontaneous round of applause burst out to greet them. I n acknowledging this cordial greeting, PRO~ESSOR FRITZ HABER explained, on behalf of the Geman delegation, that the day before had been election day in Germany and that the German delegation had started as soon as they could
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A GROUP OF AMERICAN DELEGATES TO THE T ENTH M EET I N G O F THE INTERNATIONAL UNION OP PURE A N D APPLIED CHEMISTRY. LICGE,BELGIUM. SEPTEMBER 14-20.1930 (Left to right): Alexander Silverman, Edward Bartow, Austin M. Patterson, Charles L. Reese, Claude S. Hudson, J. V N. Dorr, William Lloyd Evans, Marston T. Bogert, and Joel H. Hildebraod. after voting, but had been unable t o reach LiiCge any sooner. One of the earliest problems which arises when chemists from all over the world meet together is that of language. For those who live in Europe where there is frequent opportunity for using several lanmaaes, this difficulty is not so great. . . I n fact, i t was not uncommon to find distinauished members of the Council making a speech in French and repeating it immediately afterward in English and in German. Nevertheless, it is quite true that all of the delegates did not understand all of the languages represented and therefore there had t o be certain official languages. These were French, German, and English. The Spaniards, however, seemed to feel that their laneuage . . was of sufficient importance so that it, too, should be included in the official list. After careful discussion, however, i t was finally decided that a communication might be presented to the Union in any language, it being realized
that a man would naturally select one which could be understood by his audience. Nevertheless, in order to avoid errors, i t was agreed that all reports on administrative questions, all votes, resolutions, and official acts, if not originally formulated in French, should be translated into that language. I t was rather interesting to observe the way national viewpoints came to the front in the discussions a t the early meetings of the Council. Each particular national group, apparently unconsciously, was looking a t the various questions under discussion primarily from the point of view of how it affected their particular nation rather than from the point of view of what was the best thing for chemistry. On the other hand, it was a situation which was recognized by all and referred to on numerous occasions in informal conversations after the early meetings of the Council. It was only natural therefore that the attitude should gradually change until a t
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same of the last meetings of the Council, one of the speakers frankly said in open meeting t h a t these matters of interest to the Union should he viewed not from the point of view of what was the best for some particular nation, hut rather what was the best for the science as a whole. and it was this attitude which finally prevailed. I t was a matter of concern to some of the delegates that a certain amount of time had to be devoted to subjects which might almost be considered as matters of organization, hut, as the president pointed out, it was often well to do this, particularly when such consideration resulted in simplification. This w a s the case, for example, in connection with the name, which was simplified from "International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry" to "International Union of Chemistry." which seems to he not only entirely adequate hut also more dignified. The question as t o where the headquarten of the Union should he was also one which might have presented some difficulties, hut it was agreed that the headquarters should he provisionally a t Paris, and t h a t the city in which the headquarters should he located should he decided anew by a separate vote every four years. The set-up of the various international scientific unions had originally been through the agency of the International Research Council, to which they were, in theory a t least, responsible. It might perhaps have been foreseen that in any such set-up, the children would sooner or later reach an age of maturity a t which they would no longer fed i t necessary to he hound by any higher authority. It is true that in recent years the various international scientific unions have practiced a considerable degree of autonomy which has not been disputed by the International Research Council. Recently, however, this latter body has actually modified its constitution to provide for some of the autonomy which has been ~racticed,and a t the meeting in Liege, the Council of the International Union of Chemistry took
MARCH,1931
cognizance of this modification and interpreted it for its own situation. I t is of course obvious that there are a number of fundamental questions of international significance which can hc handled by an International Union of Chemistry to the advantage of chemists all over the world. The machinery For doing this has been to set up a number of international committees t o whom thrse various subjects were referred. The only meetings which these committees had were in connection with the meetings of the International Union every two years. and as it was not always convenient for all of the committee members to he present, it had been the practice for each national delegation to appoint a substitute for any one from their country who happened to be ahsent. A moment's consideration is sufficient to show the ahsurdity of any such procedure. The original committee members were always chosen because they were specialists on the subject t o he handled by the committee and the chances were that the substitute might know very little about the matter. A vote was passed, therefore, which limited the attendance a t the meetings of any committee to the actual members of the committee, it being understood that the real work of the committee would be done by correspondence. At the same time, theactual membership of all the various international committees was scrutinized, and in some instances the membership of these committees was largely revised. This of course is a healthy thing to do now and then in any organization. Any one a t all familiar with chemistry recognizes that one of the most serious problems which confronts our profession is that of nomenclature. For this reason, there have been several standing committees of the International Union having to do with this fundamental subject. One of these had to do with inorganic chemical nomenclature: a second with organic nomenclature: and a third with biological chemical nomenclature. I t will readily he reen that this matter of nomenclature may
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be handled in several ways and the success of the efforts of any such committee
will depend largely upon the way it is handled. One way is to pay no attention to what has been the accepted practice but to start fresh and build up a logical, though entirely new, system, accepting only such part of the previous usage as fits into the new scheme. A second way of proceeding, on the other hand, would be to accept all of the reasonable usage which has developed in the past and t o build with that as a basis. This incidentally has been essentially the plan of the committee on organic chemical nomenclature which has been able t o accomplish considerable good. Incidentally, the American representative on this committee, PRowsSoR AUSTIN M. PATTERSON, is re=oguized as an authority in this field. Another matter of obvious international interest is that of atomic weights. There had previously been a standing committee of the Union on chemical elements. At the meeting in Liige, this committee was sub-divided into three committees. The first of these is an International Committee an Atomic Weights whose duty i t will be t o publish an annual table of atomic weights to supplant the several national tables previously published. The vote establishing this commission was as follows: This committee will be made up of a limited number of members in order that i t may be possible to p i c ~ e o tits annual report without undue
by the committee to be ihe molt accurate.
The committee appointed consisted of PROFESSOR GREGORY P. BAXTER, PROFESSOR Om0 HoNrGscmrD, DR. RICHA RD MEYER, DR. PAUL LEBEAU, and PROFESSOR MADAME MARIE CURIE. GEORGE^ URBAIN.of Paris, had been chairman of the previous Committee on Chemical Elements for so long that he
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was made the honorary chairman of this new committee. The second sub-division of the former Committee on Chemical Elements is an International Committee on Atoms which will be c h i d y concerned with isotopes and atomic structure. The third sub-division is a Committee on Radioactive Constants t o codperate with the Radium Standard Committee, an international committee outside of the Union. The matter of uniform physico-chemical symbols and of fundamental thermochemical data are also matters which are being studied by separate international committees of the Union and each of these committees made progress reports a t Like. The subjects which the reorganized committee on thermo-chemical data proposes t o study are the following: (a) A proposition t o introduce salicylic acid as a secondary thermo-chemical standard. (b) A proposition to consider theestablishment of a standard for the detemination of the heat of combustion of gases and vapors. (6) A study of the bases for calcnlating the heats of formation of substances containing carbon and hydrogen. I n this connection, the committee issued a general invitation to thermo-chemists to undertake new determinations of the heat of combustion of graphite and of diamond in order t o confirm the values found by PROIIES~ORW. A. R a m . (4) Areconsideration, in the light of recent work, of the definite choice of the heat of combustion of benzoic acid as a thermo-chemical standard. Another activity, and one which is of direct interest to us in America is that of the Committee an Tables of Constants. Among other actions taken by this committee was a vote of congratulation t o the National Research Council of the United States on its completion of the International Critical Tables and an expression of the hope that in the near future a revised edition or supplementary volume might be undertaken.
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It appears that the matter of adequate abstracts is one which has been considered a t previous meetings of the International Union. We, in America, are so fortunate with our own Chemical Abslrects that this problem perhaps does not seem so important to us as to some of the other nations. A majority of the delegates, however, seemed to feel that some form of unification of chemical abstracts was desirable. The chairman of the American delegation, Dr. Charles Reese, pointed out that this matter had been very carefully considered b y the editorial stat? of Chemical Ahrlractr in conjunction with editors in other countries, and it was felt that, in this case a t least, the various national points of view were so a t variance with one another that a proper scheme of unification would he almost impossible of attainment. I n spite of this, however, the view finally prevailed that certainly nothing o u l d be accomplished if no attempt were made and therefore a committee of four, representing England, France, Germany, and the United States, was appointed to consider this matter.
MARCH, 1931
I t will he recalled t h a t although there have been frequent meetings of the International Union of Chemistry, particularly since the War, there has been no real International Congress since the one which was held in New York in 1912. After considerable discussion i t was finally voted that the Union would hold the Ninth International Congress of Pure and Applied Chemistry in Madrid between the 15th of April and the 15th of May in 1932. This lceway was allowed the committee in charge in order that the most satisfactory time might he selected, but i t is understood that the Congress itself will last only five days. I t is to he open to all nations and is to include all of the various phases of chemical activity. The matter of subdivisions is being left entirely with the Spanish committee of organization. I t is also the intention to so organize the program that there will he ample time for discussion of the various papers, i t being the plan t o have a number of papers b y invitation and only a limited number of other papers.
MeGREGORY HALL OF CHEMISTRY AT COLGATE UNIVERSITY COLCATEUNIVERSITY, HAMILTON, N. Y. R. C. ROBERTS, The erection of McGregory Hall of Chemistry on the campus of Colgate University brings t o mind the beginnings of chemistry in the college. A search of the minutes of the Board of Trustees gives a good idea of the way things were done in an earlier day. The following paragraphs are taken from these minutes:
2. The committee reeommendcd to the Board that the Treasurer be appointed to raise said eodowment. June 19. 1883. Rcsolurd: that,the (ime in come in the history of Madison anlverrlty when a ~enaratedeoartment in Chemietrv be established.
the Board. ~ h i r d l y .that the Board will expect Mr. McGregory to enter 0" his d"tiC5 at the opening of the Academic year in 1884. Follrthly. that his salary be $1600 per year, to begin Sent. 1 1884. Carried. n m e ~ e d :;hat the Board of the Univerdtv
above committee.
This is the record then of the original building erected in 1884 t o which a n addition was made in 1906, which doubled the size of the laboratory. It was in this huild-
