ACADEMY F SCIENCES] BIOGRAPHY 3 



high pressures as well as low. He tried all sorts and conditions of clay and after many, many 

 discouragements he succeeded in finding one and in making a satisfactory glaze quite different 

 from any available, and he achieved success. 



In 1902 he and J. C. W. Frazer described "The preparation of cells for the measurement 

 of high osmotic pressures." A careful reading of this article will give some idea of the tremen- 

 dous difficulties that were met and overcome. The closing paragraph may be advantageously 

 quoted in this connection: 



The difficulties of construction are by no means completely overcome, and we have in view a number of 

 changes which we hope will prove of advantage. That these difficulties are of great magnitude will be realized 

 if one considers that in our last experiment the pressure which was measured and which was still below what 

 we were called upon to control would suffice to raise a column of water at 20° to a point 15 meters higher than 

 the top of the Eiffel Tower, or which would raise from its base a marble shaft whose height is 120 meters. These 

 comparisons will perhaps make it clear that the most painstaking attention to every detail of construction is 

 absolutely essential to success when an apparatus like ours is to be made up of several parts, consisting of dif- 

 ferent materials, and which must be united without the usual mechanical means of securing strong joints. 



Soon after this the Carnegie Institution of Washington lent its powerful aid to the large 

 investigation thus begun. In 1914 the institution published a memoir entitled "The Osmotic 

 Pressure of Aqueous Solutions: Report on Investigations made in the Chemical Laboratory of 

 the Johns Hopkins University during the years 1899-1913. By H. N. Morse." In it is given 

 a detailed account of this remarkable piece of experimental work. Anyone who reads it under- 

 standingly will recognize that no one but a master of experiment could have done this. The 

 work required the highest degree of resourcefulness and skill, of patience and persistence. 

 Anyone of ordinary caliber would have stopped short of the accomplishment. Morse was 

 not satisfied with anything but perfection as nearly as this could be reached, and as it never 

 can be reached, he worried about the residual, no matter how small it might be. In the con- 

 cluding chapter of the Carnegie memoir occur these words : 



The work reported upon in the preceding chapters is only a fraction of the task which the author hopes 

 to accomplish, or to see accomplished by others. The investigation — already 15 years old — was undertaken, 

 in the first instance, with a veiw to developing a practicable and fairly precise method for the direct measure- 

 ment of the osmotic pressure of aqueous solutions. The need of such a method for the investigation of solutions 

 seemed to the author very great and very urgent. 



Honors came to him rather late, but they came; the chief among these was the award of 

 the Avogadro medal of the Turin Academy of Sciences, in 1916. 



In 1911 an international congress of scientists assembled at Turin, Italy, to celebrate the centennial of the 

 announcement of the hypothesis of Avogadro. Those in attendance decided to award a medal to be known as 

 the Avogadro medal. This medal was to be awarded to the investigator who should, in the judgment of the 

 awarding committee, make the most valuable contribution to the subject of molecular physics during the years 

 1912, 1913, and 1914. 



A few words in regard to Morse, the man. He was quiet and uneffusive. He did not 

 care for the ordinary intercourse with his fellowmen. He lived, when not in the laboratory, 

 for his family and a few kindred spirits. He married twice and had four children — a daughter 

 and three sons. His second wife, who was Miss Elizabeth Dennis Clarke, of Portland, Me., 

 his daughter, and two sons survive him. In his later years his wife was of great assistance to 

 him in preparing his articles for publication and was a true helpmate in every way. 



For many years he spent his summers at Chebeague, in the beautiful Casco Bay. Here 

 he had a simple comfortable cottage and garden. He delighted to work, both in and out of 

 the house, and this gave him his exercise. He was rather stout and he knew that he needed 

 exercise to keep his weight down. He therefore indulged in walking, bicycling, and finally in 

 motoring, and he managed to keep fairly well. But after his retirement in 1916 his health 

 failed. His strength gave out and his courage also. He did not dare to take his car out of 

 the garage, and his walks were very short. I saw him in May, just before he went to Maine, 

 and thought he seemed more like his old self. He even talked of taking up his work again. 

 It was not to be. I heard nothing from him after that. And then came the dispatch announc- 

 ing his rather sudden and entirely unexpected death. He was buried at Amherst, a place that 

 meant so much to him — where he had spent his college years and for some time had had a 

 summer home. 



