Science: Atomic Scheme

In Rochester—city of optical glass, dentists' supplies, kodaks, typewriter ribbons and rich (Eastman-endowed), up-&-coming University of Rochester—the National Puzzlers' League last week met in convention and concocted an anagram: "I, LAITY, CAN CHEER ATOMIC SCHEME." These letters, rearranged, also spell "Oh, Science! May it teach miracle." This puzzling tribute was aimed at a far greater contemporary assemblage of puzzle solvers, the 94th convention of the American Chemical Society, the comings & goings of whose 3,461 delegates made the lobby of Rochester's Hotel Seneca resemble a Manhattan subway at rush hour.

Overgrown...