ness and accuracy of Lavoisier's work brought French chemistry great fame. By one of his experiments he proved that the alchemical notion of the transmutation of water into earth was erroneous. Lavoisier published in 1784 a volume entitled "Essays Physical and Chemical," setting forth all that had been accomplished on the subject of airs from the time of Paracelsus to 1774, and included also an account of his own brilliant work wherein he established the fundamental fact that a metal burns with the absorption of air, and that when the metallic calc is strongly heated in the presence of charcoal, an air is set free which is of the same nature as the fixed air of Dr. Black.

Lavoisier deposited with the Secretary of the Academy of Science in 1772 a sealed note, and this note was not opened until the 1st day of May, 1773.

Here are the contents of this historic communication to the famous Academy:

"C About eight days ago I discovered that sulphur in burning, far from losing, augments in weight; that is to say, that from one pound of sulphur much more than one pound of vitriolic acid is obtained, without reckoning the humidity of the air. Phosphorus presents the same phenomenon. This augmentation of weight arises from a great quantity of air which becomes fixed during the combustion, and which combines with the vapors.

This discovery, confirmed by experiments which I regard as decisive, led me to think that what is observed in the combustion of sulphur and phosphorus might likewise take place with respect to all bodies which augment in weight by combustion and calcination; and I was persuaded that the augmentation of weight in the calcs of metals proceeded from the same cause. The experiments fully confirmed my conjectures.

"I operated the reduction of litharge in closed vessels with Hale's apparatus, and I observed that at the moment of the passage of the calcs into the metallic state, there was a disengagement of air in considerable quantity, and that this air formed a volume at least one thousand times greater than that of the litharge employed.

As this discovery appears to me one of the most interesting which has been made since Stahl, I thought it expedient to secure to myself the property by depositing the present note in the hands of the Secretary of the Academy, to remain secret till the period when I shall publish my experiments." LAVOISIER

Paris, 11 November, 1772

This great French chemist was an industrious worker, a contributor to the world's knowledge; and his interest in fortune was very secondary to his passion of research.

I

CHAPTER III

Some Indifference of the Past

T has been said that America has never been a nation of research in the profound scientific sense, but rather one of superficial invention.

This statement has been resented, but more from patriotic impulse than from a careful analysis of the history and status of the subject. Of course we have had quite a number of brilliant and profound American research scholars, in some of our older institutions, and lately during the war, ranking easily with any in the world, but speaking in general and considering the vastness and youth of the country, the field of true research has not been scratched.

The shock of the great war just closing has, without the slightest doubt, been one of the greatest awakening influences our country has ever experienced, and the more general spirit of real research has begun to come in for its share of development.

If we are young, and if we have been neglectful and even, with certain exceptions, stupid and short-sighted, there is now before us the

great opportunity to make amends with full and telling force.

"The time has come," writes Dr. J. S. Ames, "for America to recognize the usefulness of the scholar, the thinker, the investigator of science. All the other countries of the world have done so long since." And in an address of recent date delivered before the students of the University of Virginia upon the subject of our part in the great war, he said: - "I think it only fair to say that the universities of this country have played their part well.

"Before we actually entered this war, in those anxious years when we were waiting to see whether we would be given an opportunity to join in the fight for the cause of honor, freedom and the teachings of Christianity, or whether we must walk through the years of our lives with heads hung in disgrace, no group of people did as much to hold aloft the illuminating torch, revealing the iniquity of the enemy of civilization, as did the presidents of our universities. Theirs will be the honor forever. They who would not keep silent. Then, as soon as we were by official act in a state of war, the first to step forward and say 'Use me' were the faculties and student bodies."

Let us trace the development of the scholarly thinker in science and follow the spirit of research here down to our own great awakening possibilities.

Research in America, it must be appreciated, is naturally a very recent art, but research in the old world dates back to the dark ages, and its inception is lost in the mists of antiquity.

In the middle ages, however, the records are clear, for the Hermit Philosophers, better known perhaps as the Alchemists, dwelt and cast their spirit of research about them in almost every town and city of Europe, and down through the centuries which followed, the life principle of science and philosophy impregnated the teachings of all college faculties.

And in connection with early research, even before the discovery of America, we should not overplay the customary belittling of Alchemy. Its advocates were at times sincere and painstaking. As interpreted in the words of a great chemical philosopher, "Alchemy was never at any time anything different from chemistry."

And so we see that France, England and Italy, Scandinavia and Germany, and the other countries of the old world had the early fostering influence for research of the Alchemists, and of the earliest subsequent students in the more stable sciences.

Since the writer's early education was received in schools in France, England and Germany, the spirit of painstaking research in the Universities and even in the high schools abroad