852 BENJAMIN OSGOOD PEIRCE. 



His first scientific paper, On the Induction Spark Produced in Break- 

 ing a Galvanic Circuit between the Poles of a Magnet, was printed in the 

 Proceedings of this Academy, ha\ang been presented February 9, 1875, 

 about the middle of his Junior year in college. 



He graduated at Harvard in 1876, ranking second in his class for the 

 whole course, his friend Lefavour being first. He remained at Har- 

 vard for a year more, as an assistant to Professor Trowbridge in the 

 Physical Laboratory, and then went to Leipsic, where he received the 

 degree of Ph.D. in 1879. After a year in the University of Berlin, 

 and a year of teaching Mathematics in the Boston Latin School, he 

 returned to Harvard as Instructor in Mathematics. In 1884 he was 

 made Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Physics, and in 1888, 

 on the retirement of Professor Lovering, he became Hollis Professor 

 of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. At the time of his death 

 he was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a 

 member of the American Physical Society (its President during the 

 last year of his life), of the American Philosophical Society, of the 

 American Mathematical Society (Vice-president in 1913), of the 

 Astronomical and Astrophysical Society of America, of the National 

 Academy of Sciences, of the Societe Franfaise de Physique, and of the 

 Circolo Matematico di Palermo. 



He married in 1882 Miss Isabella Turnbull Landreth of Edinburgh, 

 whom he had met when she was a student at the Leipsic Conservatory. 

 Intimacy with her brothers, all ministers of the Scotch Church, has 

 been one of the happy relations of this marriage. His wife and his 

 two daughters survive him. 



Our colleague was a great scholar and a remarkable man. Big and 

 powerful of body, and ambidextrous, he was in mind also capable and 

 proficient far beyond the ordinary measure of his fellows. He seemed 

 to grasp with equal ease and to retain with equal tenacity the pro- 

 foundest generalizations of mathematics or physics and the smallest 

 bits of information likely to be of service in his work. He always knew 

 the best materials and the best tools to use and the best way to use 

 them. Fertile in ideas, strong of purpose, ceaseless, literally so, in 

 industry, businesslike by instinct and tradition from his merchant 

 ancestors, sympathetic and generous beyond the wishes of his friends, 

 he was a mighty, beneficent, and genial power, wherever he took his 

 stand; and he was successful, as few men are successful, in winning 

 the confidence, the admiration, and the affection of those with whom 

 he was associated. 



His work, always masterly, thorough, and important, was never of 



