ALONZO SMITH KIMBALL. 525 



study of the best European establishments, and in selecting apparatus for 

 the better equipment of the new building to which his department was to 

 be transferred. While there he sutFered from a more than usually acute 

 attack, and submitted to a dithcult and dangerous surgical operation 

 which it was hoped might lead to a permanent recovery. Only tem- 

 porary relief folluwtd, however, and within the past five or six years 

 t-everal similar operations were performed with the same result. His 

 work in the lecture room and laboratory was not seriously interrupted, 

 although carried on under conditions that would have made it impossible 

 with most men. When, ten or fifteen years ago, the creation of a new 

 branch of Engineering began, Professor Kimball was not slow to ap- 

 preciate its importance, and the Institute was among the first schools of 

 applied science to offer a course in Electricity, with ample equipment of 

 electrical machinery and other appliances necessary to its success. The 

 management and development of this course, along with the course in 

 pure j)hysics, remained with him until about two years ago, when its 

 magnitude had increased so greatly that it became necessary to set off 

 the Electrical Engineering as a separate department, with a special 

 Professor at its head. AVith lessened responsibility, his enthusiasm 

 and for a time his activity greatly increased, but his enjoyment of the 

 new conditions was unfortunately of short duration. 



Professor Kimball was uncommonly skilful in ex[)eriment, possessing 

 orisfinalitv in desiijn, and his work was done with that sense of refinement 

 and precision which is essential to original research. Between the years 

 1875 and 1880, he published in various scientific journals a series of 

 papers, each the result of wisely planned and carefully conducted ex- 

 periment, and all of much value. The first was on " Sliding Friction," 

 published in the American Journal of Science, March, 1876. It marked 

 the beginning of an important investigation of the general subject of 

 friction, the results of which were published in subsequent numbers of 

 the same journal, in Van Nostrand's Engineering Magazine, and else- 

 where. In these papers he shows that friction between sliding surfaces 

 is independent of neither velocity nor pressure, experiment pointing to 

 the existence of a maximum coefficient of friction depending on both 

 velocity and pressure. During these years there were also other papeis 

 on the influence of temper upon the physical properties of steel, the 

 effect of magnetization on the physical properties of iron, etc. There 

 was also prepared and printed a small treatise on Thermodynamics, 

 arranged especially for the use of his pupils, exhibiting much originality 

 and clearness in method of presentation. In later years occasional pub- 



