Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 2).djvu/672

638 and he was also geologist under Gen. Isaac I. Stevens on the survey of the North Pacific rail- road. In 1857 he was appointed to the north- west boundary survey, and at the close of its work prepared an elaborate report on the geology and natural history of the country. He returned to New York ni 1860, and was active in his efforts to- ward preventing secession. In 1861 he volunteered and did military duty in Washington. During the draft I'iots in New York, two years later, he offered to defend the residence of Gen. John C. Fremont when a night attack was threatened. Subsequently he was secretary of the Hudson bay claims com- mission in Washington, and also was engaged in the arrangement of a mass of manuscript bearing on the ethnology and philology of the American Indians. His services were used by the Smithso- nian institution to superintend its labors in this field, and to his energy and complete knowledge of the subject it greatly owes its success in this branch of science. He was an active member of the New York historical society, and was its secretary from 1842 till 1848. His papers on Indian dialects con- tributed to the various Smithsonian publications include numerous titles, and his separate publica- tions are " The Judicial Chronicle " (Cambridge, 1834); •' Instructions for Research relative to the Ethnology and Philology of America " (Washing- ton, 1868) ; '• A Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon or Trade Language of Oregon " (1863) ; " Compar- ative Vocabulary " (1863) ; and " Suggestions rela- tive to Objects of Scientific Investigation in Rus- sian America " (1867). — Another son, Oliver Wol- cott, chemist, b. in New York city. 21 Feb., 1823, after passing through the grammar-school attached to Columbia, was graduated at that college in 1841. A few months were then spent in the labo- ratory of Dr. Robert Hare in Philadelphia, after which he returned to New York, and was graduated at the College of physicians and surgeons in 1845. Subsequently he went abroad, and studied chemis- try at first under Rammelsberg and then under Heinrich Rose in the University of Berlin, spending a year and a half in these two laborato- ries. Later he passed five months in Gies- sen, studying organic chemistry under Lie- big, and afterward at- tended the lectures on physics in the Col- lege of France by Regnault. In 1848 he returned to the United States and gave a short coui'se of lectures at Dela- ware college, Newark. 1849 till 1863 he held the chair of physics and chem- istry in the College of the city of New York, and then was elected to the Rumford professorship in Harvard university with the charge of the labora- tory of the Lawrence seientific'school, which chair he has since held. On tiie reorganization of the university subsequent to the election of Charles W. Eliot to the presidency the teaching of chemistry was transferred to the collegiate department, and the subjects of heat and light were assigned to Dr. Gibbs. During the years when he directed the chemical laboratory the school attained its greatest celebrity, and many of its most distinguished grad- uates acquired their knowledge of chemistry from his teaching. Like his colleague, Louis Agassiz, he attracted to him students who became his personal friends and who have ever maintained a filial re- gard for him. During the civil war he was actively associated in the labors of the U. S. sanitary com- mission, and was a member of its executive com- mittee in New York city. The members of this organization were compelled to meet each other almost daily, and out of their work grew the Union league club of New York. Dr. Gibbs " was the first to suggest that the idea on which the sanitary com- mission was formed needed to take the form of a club which should be devoted to the social or- ganization of sentiments of loyalty to the Union." The original meeting to consider the feasibility of the plan was held at his residence on 30 Jan., 1863. He was appointed a commissioner to the Vienna ex- hibition in 1873, and contributed to the government reports a valuable paper on his examination of the instruments of physical research. Dr. Gibbs is the only American honorary member of the German chemical society, and one of the two American hon- orary members of the London chemical society. He was one of the original members of the National academy of sciences, was for some time its vice- president, and has declined an election to the presi- dency. At present he is its foreign secretary. He is also a member of other American scientific societies, and was elected vice-president of the American association for the advancement of sci- ence in 1866. In 1873 he received the honorary degree of LL. D. from Columbia. He announced his intention in 1851 of preparing for the columns of the " American Journal of Science " abstracts- of the more important physical and chemical papers contained in foreign scientific journals, accom- panied by references and by such critical observa- tions as the occasion might demand. This purpose- was steadily carried out until 1873, and these ab- stracts cover over 500 closely printed pages. Much of his original investigation has appeared in the " Contributions to Chemistry from the Lawrence Scientific School," and he has published veiy elabo- rate memoirs on the platinum metals, on the ammo- nia cobalt bases, on new analytical methods, and on complex inorganic acids, discovering platino-tung- states, vanadio-tungstates and molybdates, as well as other exceedingly complicated compounds in inor- ganic chemistry. In physics he has published pa- pei's on the wave-lengths of light, on vapor densi- ties, improved methods of gas analysis, and on the theory of the dynamo-electric machine. These have appeared principally in the '* American Jour- nal of Science" and the "American Chemical Journal." Dr. Gibbs has published no book, but as an indefatigable original investigator in the do- main of chemistry and physics he has no superior in the United States. — Another son. Alfred, sol- dier, b. in Sunswick. L. I.. 22 April. 1823 ; d. in Fort Leavenworth, Kan., 26 Dec, 1868. His fam- ily, disappointed in their wish to obtain a military appointment for their second son. persisted in the effort, and as the one grew beyond the age within which the candidate is eligible, the claim for ap- pointment was transferred to the next, and as persistently urged. The second son was compelled to give up his ambition, but the third received the long-sought commission. He was graduated at the U. S. military academy in 1846, assigned to. the mounted rifles, and received two brevets during the Mexican war — that of 1st lieutenant for gal- lantry at Cerro Gordo, where he was wounded, and that of captain for his services at Garita de Helen, city of Mexico. He was also at Vera Cruz, Con- treras, Churubusco, and Chapultepec. He was.