BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF GEORGE F. BARKER. 693 



been noticed. The advocates of this view plead very plausibly that, 

 as the moisture in the air is the food of the storm, so, where that moist- 

 ure is deficient, the storm dies of starvation. 



We may, however, point out to them that eddies in a river and dust- 

 whirls at street corners waste and wane without any assistance from 

 vapor condensation. 



In conclusion, though it is a humiliating confession for us to make, 

 meteorologists are as yet entirely in the dark as to the reasons why one 

 depression fills up while another becomes deeper. As I have already 

 stated, no meteorologist is able to give a straightforward answer to the 

 simple question, What causes the barometer to rise or fall ? Popular 

 Science Review. 



-+*+- 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF GEORGE F. BARKER. 



PROFESSOR BARKER, who is this year President of the Ameri- 

 can Scientific Association, was born in Charlestown, Massachu- 

 setts, July 14, 1835. His parents were in comfortable circumstances, 

 his father being in command of a packet-ship sailing between Boston 

 and Liverpool. His early education was received in the public schools 

 of his native place, though before graduating at the high school the 

 family removed in 1849 to South Berwick, Maine, and he continued 

 his studies, first at the Classical Academy in that village, and subse- 

 quently at the Lawrence Academy in Groton, Massachusetts, and at 

 Yarmouth Academy, Maine. In 1851 he accepted an invitation from 

 his father to visit the Crystal Palace International Exhibition in Lon- 

 don. On his return he entered, as an apprentice, the shop of the Hon. 

 J. M. Wightman, of Boston, the well-known maker of philosophical 

 instruments, where he remained until he attained his majority in 1856. 

 Faraday was not so fortunate ; he was an apprentice to a bookbinder, 

 whereas young Barker was indentured to a trade that laid the founda- 

 tion of his scientific education. 



In September of that year, by the advice of friends, he entered the 

 Yale Scientific School (now the Sheffield School) in New Haven as a 

 student in chemistry, and was graduated therefrom with the degree 

 of Bachelor of Philosophy in 1858. During the last year of this 

 course of study he held the position of Professor Silliman's chemical 

 assistant ; and during the winter of 1858-'59, and again in 1860-'61, 

 he was assistant to Dr. John Bacon, Professor of Chemistry in the 

 Harvard Medical School, Boston. In 1859, at the Springfield meeting, 

 he was made a member of the American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science. In the winter of the same year he gave, on invita- 

 tion, a course of public lectures in the city of Pittsburg, under the 



