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Frank Wigglesworth With Colleagues

Frank Wigglesworth Clarke (1847-1931), was a chemist, born in Boston, Massachusetts 19 March 1847.

Father of geochemistry. Determined composition of the earths crust.

Clarke taught chemistry and physics at Howard University in Washington, D.C., 1873-1874, and at the University of Cincinnati, 1874-1883.

Clarke authored one of the first governmental reports on the teaching of science in the United States. The report was sponsored by the US Commissioner of Education in 1878 and titled: "Report on the teaching of chemistry and physics in the United States". It was printed by the Government Printing Office in Washington, DC. Clarke's stated purpose in writing the report was to "state the facts, and secondly, to point out defects and remedies--to show on the one hand what is, and on the other what ought to be" (p. 377) relative to the teaching of chemistry and physics in the United States. The report was exhaustive, spanning secondary institutions, normal schools, and more than 350 colleges and universities. It was referenced in Science, Vol. 2, No. 67. (Oct. 8, 1881), pp. 473-475.

In 1908 the first edition of Clarke's work, The Data of Geochemistry (Survey Bulletin no. 330), was published while he was the Chief Chemist at the U.S. Geological Survey. Clarke's fifth edition of this bulletin was released in 1924; the year he retired.

• The F.W. Clarke Award of the Geochemical Society is named after him.
• The mineral Clarkeite was named after him.

• Frank Wigglesworth Clarke Papers, 1873-1921. Smithsonian Institution Archives (February 27, 2004). Retrieved on 2007-03-11.