Chemistry Cornerstone

At Place d'lena, Paris, almost under the bronze nose of George Washington's horse,* a group of notable Frenchmen gathered around a hollowed building stone last week. They were men potent in French science, politics and industry. Mingled among them, like atoms of a great molecule of reverence, were diplomats of foreign countries. The nucleus of their thoughts was the stone.

It was the cornerstone for the proposed 15,000,000-franc International House of Chemistry, which French scientists promise will function as purely as the Pasteur Institute, but which U. S. chemical manufacturers fear will centralize continental opposition to the U.S. chemical industry. Also opposed to the institution is the American Chemical Society, whose Secretary, Dr. Charles Lathrop Parsons, last month wrote to U. S. Secretary of State Frank Billings Kellogg: "The American Chemical Society is very strongly opposed to the creation of any international centre for the control of chemistry, whether it be located in France or elsewhere." The Department of State answered that already, in August 1926, it had declined the French government's invitation to join the movement.

Nevertheless U. S. citizens contributed many hundreds of thousands of francs toward the 15,000,000 francs wanted. Delegates representing them and delegates of other contributing countries last week signed a scroll commemorating their deeds. That scroll M. Edouard Herriot, onetime (1924-25, 1926) premier of France and now Minister of Public Instruction & Fine Arts in the cabinet of Premier Raymond Poincare, carefully rolled up and meticulously placed inside the cornerstone.

Then he sealed the stone and the notables dispersed, leaving the block in fantastic isolation, for not yet have foundations been laid for the International House of Chemistry. Nor have Frenchmen decided on a site/- for its erection.

*Daniel Chester French's equestrian statue of Washington, erected in 1900.

/-This is the third time a site has been chosen for the building.