Claisen, Th. Curtius, Emil Fischer, Otto Fischer, P. Friedländer. C. Graebe, L. Knorr, C. Liebermann, Victor Meyer, H. v. Pechmann, J. Thiele, and R. Wilstätter.

Baeyer's influence on the development of chemical industry, and especially of the color industry, was not less remarkable, for in every works were to be found such men as Caro and Duisberg, Homolka, and Weinberg, and a host of others who had learned their chemistry and acquired their methods of research in the laboratories at Munich. If inquiry is made into the reason for the wide influence which Baeyer has exerted on chemical thought, it will be universally agreed that this has been due in the main to his extraordinary enthusiasm for research and the keen joy which he felt and expressed when he had succeeded in producing some new substance of importance which he had probably been seeking for many months, and possibly for years. On such occasions he used to walk about the laboratories beaming with delight and discuss his latest discovery and its probable consequences with his assistants and advanced pupils. His enthusiasm fired the enthusiasm of his hearers, and unquestionably did much to awaken and stimulate the desire to make discoveries and achieve something perhaps of equal importance. Baeyer was essentially an experimenter, and had little real interest in the development of new theories, although some of his views, such, for example, as those on the constitution of benzine, the structure of oxonium salts, the cause of color in the triphenylmenthane series, and the mechanism of the formation of sugar in the plant, were valuable contributions to theory, and his well-known Spannungs Theorie" was a brilliant conception of real value in connection with stability in ring structures.

It was Baeyer's habit to adjourn to his private laboratory directly after his early morning lecture, for perhaps an hour, in order to carry out any experiments which had occurred to him after the close of the previous day's work and to discuss the day's program with his assistant. He would then walk through the research laboratories and talk over any difficulties with those with whom he happened to be working, and with others whose work happened to interest him. Baeyer's custom was to work himself with comparatively few of those engaged in research in his laboratories, and he left to the Privatdozenten almost entirely the supervision of the Doctorarbeiten. Unless something of real interest had happened, it was usual for those working with him to tell him at once that there was nothing to report, and, in this way, Baeyer frequently made the tour of the large laboratories so rapidly that he was back in his private labora tory soon after 11 o'clock, and the whole of the rest of the day was spent at his own work. His private laboratory-a large and very

well-lit room-usually contained, besides one private assistant, some other researcher in whose work he was specially interested, and it was not unusual for such a student to remain in the private laboratory for weeks at a time. Such an experience was, of course, of the utmost value to those who were fortunate enough to enjoy the privilege; in such circumstances it was impossible not to be profoundly influenced by the skill, patience, and resource with which the experimental difficulties of so many intricate problems were gradually overcome. His equipment for research consisted almost entirely of test tubes and glass rods, and it rarely happened that he used anything larger than quite small beakers and flasks. Large wooden racks containing hundreds of test tubes were always at hand, and it used to be said that these test tubes, after the usual wash, were subjected to a further cleaning, first with alcohol, and then with distilled water. Baeyer always insisted that the occurrence of a chemical change can be more easily observed and its course more closely followed with small quantities of material and the aid of a test tube and glass rod than by the employment of a hundred grams of substance and large flasks of beakers. That this view was undoubtedly correct is demonstrated not only by the brilliant results which Baeyer himself achieved with such simple means, but even more conclusively by the fact that his pupils, if perhaps reluctantly at first, all ultimately adopted his method of work. There can be no doubt that the discovery and careful characterization of so many substances, and the publication of so much important work covering such a wide field, would not have been possible had not Baeyer early acquired the habit of working with small quantities of material.

Baeyer's immense power of work is shown by the fact that, until his eightieth birthday, he delivered his usual lectures on five mornings of each week and continued to experiment in his laboratory with his usual unflagging energy. Had the war not robbed him of his private assistant and laboratory staff, it is probable that he would have gone on even longer. He confided to one of his intimate friends that work in the laboratory gave him as much pleasure after 50 years' toil as at any time during his career, and to the last he took the greatest interest in any developments in the domain of natural science which were brought to his notice. It is well known that he viewed with disfavor and apprehension the growing domination of military power in Berlin and Prussia generally, and it was mainly, no doubt, for this reason that he refused to accept the invitation to Berlin on the death of Hofmann.

Adolf von Baeyer was born on October 31, 1835, in Berlin, and he spent his early life in the house (242 Friedrichstrasse) of his grand father, which at that time was a center of the literary life of Berlin,

and it thus came about that Baeyer was brought up in a literary atmosphere. He always referred to this early intimate contact with literature with pleasure, and considered that the love for literature which he acquired in those days was of great service to him throughout his later career. Baeyer's chief interest in these early days seems to have been for botany and in living things generally, and his first contact with chemistry was on his ninth birthday, when his father gave him a copy of Stockhardt's "Schule der Chemie."

In his "Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben," which he wrote for the celebrations organized in connection with his seventieth birthday, he tells us that he converted a passage in the house into a small laboratory, and there carried out the usual dangerous and unpleasant experiments associated with early youth. It was during this time that he made his first discovery, that of the double salt, CuCo,, Na2CO3, HO. The activity of the small laboratory does not seem to have been altogether appreciated, and the poet, Paul Heyse, who was a frequent visitor at the house, had reason to protest:

Es stinkt in diesem Haus gar sehr

Das kommt vom Adolf Baeyer her.

When he entered the university Baeyer seems at first to have entirely forsaken his chemical experiments and to have devoted himself to physics and mathematics, but the interest in chemistry soon returned, and in 1856 he entered Bunsen's laboratory at Heidelberg. After studying the methods of analysis in this famous laboratory for a year, he came under the influence of Kekulé, whom he afterwards followed to Ghent, and whom he always considered was his real teacher.

Baeyer obtained the Ph. D. degree in 1858; his dissertation, "De arsenici cu, methylo conjunctionibus," presented and printed in Latin, was a difficult and important piece of accurate work, and a great achievement for so young an investigator, especially as it was commenced and carried out entirely on his own initiative. In the spring of 1860 Baeyer returned to Berlin and became Privatdozent at that university, but in the same year he was appointed teacher in organic chemistry in the Gewerbe Institut, an institution which later developed into the Berliner Technische Hochschule. The foundations of many of Baeyer's most important researches were laid during the next few years, for we find him publishing papers on the uric acid group, mellitic acid, isatin and indigo, the reduction of benzene carboxulic acids, acetylene derivatives, etc., subjects which later developed into the classical memoirs with which his name is so intimately associated. Among the distinguished workers who were attracted to Baeyer's laboratory during this time we find the names of Graebe, Liebermann, Nencki, and Victor Meyer, and it was in

1866 (Annalen, cxl., 295) that the method of reduction by distillation with zinc dust was elaborated which enabled Graebe and Liebermann to demonstrate that alizarin is a derivative of anthracene, and thus to proceed with the synthesis of this important coloring matter. The next stage in Baeyer's career began in 1872, when he was appointed professor of chemistry in Strasburg, and it was here that he numbered among his pupils Emil and Otto Fischer and H. Caro, and produced many papers, of which those dealing with the phthaleins are probably the most important. Baeyer stayed in Strasburg for three years, and then proceeded in 1875 to Munich, where he remained for 40 years, and it was in the Munich laboratories that most of his famous researches reached maturity.

It is impossible to mention even the titles of the long series of papers which appeared with such regularity during this long period and are so well known to every student of chemistry. Mention may, however, be made of his researches on the phthaleins, the reduction of the phthalic acids, the constitution of benzene, indigo, and its derivatives, and last, but not least, the researches on the polyacetylene derivatives, which are marvels of experimental skill and have perhaps never been sufficiently appreciated.

His later researches were concerned with the peroxides, the constitution of Caro's acid, and particularly with the constitution of the oxonium salts and of the colored derivatives of triphenylmethane, and his last research, published in 1911, together with Jean Piccard, was on the oxonium salts derived from dimethylpyrone (Annalen, ccclxxxiv, 208, 224).

(Extract by W. H. Perkin, Nature, vol. 100, No. 2506 (Nov. 8, 1917). p. 188.)

REPORT OF THE NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL.

The preliminary steps in the organization of the National Research Council, which were given in detail in the last annual report of the academy, may be briefly recapitulated here. In April, 1916, when the attack on the Sussex had greatly increased the tension of our relations with Germany, the academy voted to offer to the President its services in organizing the scientific resources of the United States in the interest of the national security and welfare. This offer was immediately accepted. The President expressed the desire that the academy should coordinate the scientific resources of the entire country, and secure the cooperation of all agencies, governmental, educational, and industrial, in which research facilities are available. He also emphasized the fact that the chief national advantage of such cooperation and coordination would come after the war, and that its most lasting effect would be seen in scientific and industrial progress.

The National Research Council, comprising the chiefs of the technical bureaus of the Army and Navy, the heads of Government bureaus engaged in scientific research, a group of investigators representing educational institutions and research foundations, and another group including representatives of industrial and engineering research, was accordingly constituted by the academy with the active cooperation of the leading national scientific and engineering societies. On July 24, 1916, President Wilson addressed a letter to the president of the national academy expressing his approval of a preliminary report regarding the National Research Council, and promising his cooperation and that of the various departments of the Government. Since that time he has continued to give his support to the work of the National Research Council, and has appointed various representatives of the Government to membership in the council.

On February 28, 1917, the Council of National Defense passed a resolution expressing its recognition of the fact that the National Research Council, at the request of the President, had organized the scientific resources of the country in the interest of national defense and national welfare, and requesting the research council to cooperate with it in matters pertaining to scientific research for national defense. As the result of this action the chairman of the council opened