272 JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF COSMETIC CHEMISTS time that Synge moved on to an interesting post at the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen in northern Scotland, where he is now. Dr. Anthony Trafford James--recipient of the Society of Cosmetic Chemists Specia Award for outstanding scientific literature. Dr. James and Nobel prize winner A. J. P. Martin share the 1 •57 Award in recognition of their publications on gas chromatography. It was at the Lister Institute that A. T. James started out as an associate with Synge and then with Martin. James was born in Cardiff in South Wales, and moved to London with his family when he was a small boy. His school- ing led him to University College, London, where he obtained the B.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Physical Organic Chemistry with Professors Ingold and Hughes. In England one of the honours open to a promising young scholar is the winning of a Beit Memorial Fellowship, which James did for the pur- pose of pursuing post-doctoral research at the Lister. And when Martin moved to England's large National Institute for Medical Research at Mill Hill, just on the outskirts of London, James went with him as his principal colleague. With this combination and this research atmosphere, plus a lot of ingenious but hard work, gas-liquid chromatography was converted from a ten-year-old idea of Martin and Synge's to a reality. Martin and James can tell you what gas-liquid chromatography is far better than I --but your Chairman has asked me by way of introduction to describe the discovery in general terms, and Martin and James can correct me or expand the description.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF GAS CHROMATOGRAPHY 273 We are all familiar with the extraction of organic compounds from aqueous solution by ether. Gas-liquid chromatography operates on the principle of repeated extractions in which the two phases are a gas and a liquid instead of two liquids. A tube is packed with particles of an absorbent solid which holds a high boiling liquid as the stationary phase. For example, a sample of hydrocarbons to be separated is introduced at one end in vaporised form in a stream of nitrogen. The individual hydrocarbons are extracted from the gas phase in differing proportions depending upon their individual distribution coefficients between the two phases. The rates of travel of the constituents of the mixture down the tube are a function of these distribution coefficients. A spatial separation of the components is thus achieved as in other forms of chromatography, and the individual compounds are detected by measuring devices placed across the stream of nitrogen emerging from the delivery end of the tube. A key part of the equipment is the measuring device, and Martin and James have invented a gas-density balance that is more sensitive than any of the hot-wire analysers which, however, serve many commercial purposes. The speed of the method is remarkable. Many analyses of complex mixtures are complete in 30 minutes. In this manner volatile compounds can be separated far more effectively than by simple fractional distillation, and gas-liquid chromatography is rendering obsolete, for many analytical purposes, the method of fractional distillation which we learned in school. If you pick up a current copy of almost any journal of analytical chemis- try you will find advertisements of machines for gas chromatography by the method of Martin and James. One of the largest markets is, of course, in the petroleum industry, where the method has revolutionised the analysis of gasoline and other hydrocarbon fuels. Martin and James worked the procedure out first for amines and for the esters of fatty acids, which are examples of only two of the many types of organic compounds that can be handled. Many of these are of biochemical importance, and it is in part the interest in the determination of organic acids in and on the skin that has attracted the interest of your Society in this method, together with the application to the analysis and preparation of perfumes. Dr. James, as a member of the staff of the National Institute for Medical Research in London, is currently visiting the Rockefeller Institute here in New York. He came over at the special invitation of Dr. E. H. Ahrens, Jr., to set up the method for the study of fatty acids in human metabolism. He brought over equipment which Martin himself had made in London, and James has us watching in admiration as the automatic recorder runs off beautiful analyses in a matter of minutes. Martin flew over yesterday for this occasion at your invitation. He is now a free-lance consultant who has a laboratory and shop set up as a part of his house near London. At the age of eight he was making things in his