Lauby’s Cornell Chemical Recollections

August 1970

“THE KING”

Louis Monroe Dennis came to Cornell in 1887 as instructor in chemistry. At the University of Michigan he had studies in languages with the intention of becoming a philogist, but chemistry courses in his upperclass years led him to a career in science. His early interest in words was a fine preparation for his precisely composed lectures and his clear scientific thinking.

In 1889 he went to Germany for two years of advanced study, a must in those days for any one aspiring to a professorship in chemistry. Returning to Cornell in 1891, he became Head of the Chemistry Department in 1903, continuing in this post until his retirement in 1933 after some 43 years of distinguished and strenuous years of service to Cornell.

We freshmen enrolling in 1917 for the B. Chem. Degree were awed by the tales told us by upperclassmen of “The King”, who ruled the Department with a firm and decisive hand. We say little of him because he was completely immersed in steering Chemistry through the rugged task of recovery from the destruction of Morse Hall by fire in February, 1916. Typically, while the embers were still glowing, he called the chemistry faculty together to cope with the emergency, and within a week all courses were again meeting in improvised quarters all over campus. Planning for a new building was a job he tackled with relish and ingenuity, insisting that all staff members participate.

Somehow he found time to teach quantitative analysis, my most visit memory being his suggestion that, when transferring a solution from a beaker, wiping the side of one’s nose with the finger and then transferring the oil thus acquired to the lip of the beaker would insure that the liquid would not dribble down the side. The principle has since been used effectively by the Laubengayers, who spread films of butter on the lips of cream jugs to effect quantitative transfer.

[Picture: Dennis Research Group 1927]

The Dennis lectures in inorganic chemistry opened our eyes to the wonders of the Periodic Table. “The King” considered every blank place for the then undiscovered elements a personal challenge, and much of his research was aimed at trying to fill some of the blanks. An 1892 letter now in the archives of the Mendeleev Museum in Leningrad is addressed by Dennis to Mendeleev, asking for information about the alleged discovery of “Russi”. The fond hope of Dennis for the discovery of “Cornellium” was never realized.

As a graduate student from 1923 to 1926, and later as a member of the staff, I was priveledged to work with “The King” and benefit from the extraordinary breadth of his knowledge and interests. A handsome, erect six-footer, he has been a varsity baseball pitcher at Michigan and played tennis and golf. He was a leader in establishing intercollegiate football rules. His billiard game approached professional quality, and he loved to tell stories about Willy Hoppe whom he knew well. Dennis was an accomplished pianist and had a fine baritone voice. He took great pride in having been a prime mover in getting music festivals started at Cornell.

“The King” played a dominant role in departmental affairs. Each morning he would drive majestically to his reserved parking space in Baker court, and one felt there should have been a fanfare to announce his arrival. After mornings in his front office and in the lecture room, he would visit his “den” and research laboratory at least once a day. We students soon learned that we darn well better have something interesting to report.

While usually a very fair person, “The King” sometimes enjoyed a bit of bullying of more timid souls. In his later years he became quite deaf and was one of the first to use an electric hearing-aid (which howled more than it helped). It was not safe to presume too much on his deafness, as one of his graduate students learned. After a particularly trying reproof from “The King” about lack of research progress, this unfortunate muttered, “how would you like to go to hell?”. To his horror and the great glee of the rest of us, “The King” whirled around, “what was that?”, and walked out of the lab with what I thought was a wicked twinkle in his eye. There was much speculation on whether or not he knew he was called “The King”, but he never gave any clue.

A gifted experimentalist, Dennis delighted in presenting spectacular lecture demonstrations and in devising complicated apparatus for research. He was a friend of Alfred Stock, the German inventor of vacuum-line techniques, and I believe that Dennis must have been the first to use them in this country. His students R.B. Corey and Slippy Moore built a vac line to study germanium hydrides in 1921 when this was a truly heroic task. Well-ground stopcocks, interchangeable glass joints and effective vacuum pumps were unavailable. To get a reasonable vacuum we built glass Toepler pumps. After having spent a month blowing one of improved design, I came in one day to find that a window cleaner had put his foot through it. It was a grim moments, when one despaired of a career in chemistry. But “The King” appeared, listened sympathetically to my tale of woe, and renewed my spirits.

One of the pet projects of Dennis was building up a fine museum in organic specimens. Johnny Stockett, B. Chem 1920, writes of his experiences in a course in inorganic preparations. “This is the story of the ‘Golden Porcupine’, born one morning in late April, 1919, in one of the hoods of old Morse Hall. It was first discovered by “The King” who named it and placed it in a glass cage in his museum. Many were curious as to the origin of this strange specimen. Here’s how it was created.

“It was a warm day in spring, the bees were buzzing and the birds singing and this junior, who had been assigned the problem of extracting cesium from pollucite, looked out of the window and thought how nice it would be to slip away to the ball field to practice with the Varsity. The experiment had reached the stage when the extraction liquor needed concentration on the steam bath to induce crystallization. So our embryo chemist decided for baseball and took off, intending to return later to harvest the crop and tidy up, as required by “The King”.

“However, our hero failed to perform to the satisfaction of the coach, and was ordered to take five laps. Tired and discouraged, he trudged home, neglecting to return to the lab. But fortunately a good Samaritan, Jacob Papish, turned off the heat. During the night three-to-four-inch needles of cesium dichloriodide formed in such a manner as to represent a porcupine defending himself. And so the ‘Golden Porcupine’ was born and so christened by “The King”.

Professor and Mrs. Dennis often entertained students and these evenings were wonderful experiences in gracious living. “The King” being a stickler for punctuality, we took pains to start early and then dawdle in the neighborhood so as to arrive right on the minute. We gathered around a huge, round table and “The King” would give us a lesson in carving a turkey or roast, and regale us with stories of mountain climbing in the Alps, one of his early hobbies. Then to the music room, where Dennis would hand around copies of the score of a Wagnerian opera (he had been a student in Germany when these were first performed) and give us a resume of the themes, playing them on the piano. We then listened to a Victrola recording and struggled to recognize the themes when they appeared.

As is the case with any strong character, “The King” was respected and admired by many, but disliked by some for his dominating ways. All agree, however, that his strong leadership of Chemistry at Cornell during its formative years was very important in building up its quality and prestige.