Frank Wigglesworth Clarke

American scientist and chemist

Frank Wigglesworth Clarke (March 19, 1847 – May 23, 1931) of Boston, Massachusetts, and Washington, D. C. was an American scientist and chemist. Sometimes known as the "Father of Geochemistry," Clarke is credited with determining the composition of the Earth's crust. He was a founder of The American Chemical Society and served as its President, in 1901.

Clarke was the first theorist to advance a hypothesis regarding the evolution of elements. This concept emerged early in his intellectual career. His "Evolution and the Spectroscope" (1873) appeared in Popular Science Monthly. It noted a parallel evolution of minerals, accompanying that of plant life. His study "Constants of Nature" (Smithsonian Institution 1876) was one of the first collections of both physical and chemical constants. The USGS's Atomic Weights series became standard references for the chemistry and geochemistry professions and academic fields. Clarke was also an academic collaborator. His Data on Geochemistry became a means of collecting peer professional efforts for common use across five successive editions. 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. 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. Clarke was also an early pioneer (1891) of work efficiency studies, using the theory of probability and least squares as the basis for work review.

Clarke's parents, Henry W. Clarke and Abby (Fisher) Clarke, were residents of Boston, Massachusetts. Henry W. Clarke was a hardware merchant and dealer in iron working machinery. In 1874, Frank W. Clarke became spouse to Mary P. Olmstead of Cambridge, Massachusetts. While at Cincinnati, he made extensive forays into Appalachia to study its geology and form. Clarkes' first academic work was entitled On a new process in mineral analysis (March 1868). It was published at age 20 and during the year he went on to serve as an instructor in Chemistry at the new Cornell University. In 1904, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society.