The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Smith, Edgar Fahs

SMITH, Edgar Fahs, American chemist and educator: b. York, Pa., 23 May 1856. He was graduated at Pennsylvania College in 1874 and took his Ph.D. at the University of Göttingen in 1876. He was professor of chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania in 1888-1911, vice-provost there in 1899-1911, and has since been provost. He has made important investigations in electrolytic methods of analysis and atomic weight determinations. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, was president of the American Chemical Society in 1898, and of the American Philosophical Society in 1902-06. He translated Richter's ‘Inorganic Chemistry’ (3d ed., 1900), and is author of ‘Electro-Chemical Analysis’ (new ed., 1918); ‘Theories of Chemistry’ (1913); ‘Chemistry in America’ (1914); ‘Atomic Weights’ (1915); ‘James Woodhouse’ (1918), etc.