Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 49.djvu/131

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
SKETCH OF HENRY AUGUSTUS ROWLAND.
119

ences, Washington; honorary member of the Royal Society, of London; one of the twelve honorary members of the London Physical Society; one of the ten honorary members of the Paris Physical Society; honorary member of the Royal Society of Göttingen; of the Accademia dei Lincei, Rome; Academy of Sciences, Catania, Sicily; of the Manchester Literary and Scientific Society; of the Cambridge (England) Philosophical Society; of the Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, of the Italian Society of Spectroscopists, etc. He is corresponding member of the British Association, of the Institute of France, etc.

In 1883 he presided over the Section of Physics of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at Minneapolis, before which body he delivered an address, A Plea for Pure Science, which was published and read with great interest throughout the world.

He was foremost among the members of the Electrical Congress at Chicago, and was President of the International Chamber of Delegates for the establishment of electrical units. The students of the University of Chicago, who occupied front seats in the Academy of Fine Arts when this body of learned men was called to order, regarded Henry Augustus Rowland as second only to his great teacher, the late Baron von Helmholtz. It is possible that those who were privileged to be present on that occasion will never again see, on a single platform, so many men of international reputations.

In 1880 the Johns Hopkins University conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. In 1895 Yale University conferred on him the degree of LL. D.

In 1890 Prof. Rowland was married to Miss Henrietta Harrison, of Baltimore, who is thoroughly interested in his work, and is in perfect sympathy with him. They have two bright and interesting children. His oldest, a little daughter, Harriette, named for his mother, is four years old. His son, Henry Augustus Rowland, though only three years of age, already bids fair to follow in the footsteps of his distinguished father. The lad is very fond of visiting the physical laboratory, and will for a long time watch with silent and absorbed interest the movements of the intricate machinery, which is kept constantly going under the supervision of Mr. Schneider.

Prof. Rowland is a tall, strongly built man, and can frequently be seen at one of the windows in the basement of the physical laboratory of Johns Hopkins University industriously working and deeply absorbed in making investigations and experiments which the vast majority of his fellow-citizens would not comprehend. Every one who approaches him is at once impressed by his genuineness. His favorite exercise is horseback riding. Dur-