Handwritten speech by Mendeleev may fetch USD 50k at auction

A handwritten and signed manuscript of a speech given by Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev - the father of the Periodic Table of elements - at a conference in 1898 is expected to fetch USD 50,000 at an auction in the US.

Mendeleev is famous for formulating the Periodic Law and creating a predictive version of the periodic table of elements.

The manuscript in Russian signed "D Mendeleev," is accompanied by a handsome custom-made blue half morocco solander case, as well as a Russian transcript of the text as published.

It consists 24 leaves - some with additional writing on the reverse, according to the US-based RR Auctions.

The speech on "The Oscillation of the Balance" was delivered at the General Meeting of the 10th Congress of Russian Naturalists in Kiev in August 1898.

After the end of his teaching career at the University of St Petersburg in 1890, Mendeleev was variously employed by the government bureaucracy.

From 1892 on he was 'concerned in the regulation of the system of weights and measures in Russia, a task that he discharged 'with enthusiasm, since here the purely scientific was closely interwoven with the practical.'

In 1893 he was named the director of the newly created Central Board of Weights and Measures, a post which he held until his death, and in connection with which he frequently travelled abroad.

The bidding for the online auction will close on January 10.