456 PROCEEDINGS OF COLUMBUS MEETING. 



made the tests of slates from the region about his home, the publication 

 of which is subsequently cited. The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 

 conferred on him in 1885 the further degree of B. S. 



In the summer of 1884 he traveled in northern Europe, visiting North 

 cape and the mines of Sweden and Norway. In the fall, acting on the 

 advice of Professor Nason,he matriculated at the university of Gottingen 

 and became one in a long and honorable list of American scientific men 

 who have received their preparation at this ancient seat of learning. 

 While at Gottingen his work lay especially in mineralogy and petrog- 

 raphy under the guidance of Professor Carl Klein, now of Berlin, and in 

 chemistry under Professor Victor Meyer. 



In the spring vacation of 1885 he traveled with Professor Klein through 

 Italy and Sicily, and later was assigned the subject of his doctor's thesis 

 in one of the extinct volcanic districts of the former. Through Professor 

 Klein, Dr. Williams came to know Professor Rosenbusch, of Heidelberg, 

 to whose kind advice he was afterward indebted in his American work. 

 Professor Klein received in Sienna several specimens of an igneous rock 

 from Monte Amiata, an extinct volcanic pile that rises near the classic- 

 lake Trasimenus and forms the highest peak in Tuscany. The} 7 proved 

 of such interest that they were intrusted to Dr. Williams as suggestive 

 for his thesis. With characteristic energy and thoroughness he pro- 

 ceeded to the region in September, 1885, and, accompanied by a Swiss 

 helper and a local Italian guide, he spent several weeks on the moun- 

 tain, either camping or lodging in the little Italian inns. 



Returning to Gottingen, he anticipated taking his doctorate in the 

 summer of 1886, but the sudden call of Professor Klein to Berlin neces- 

 sitated holding the examinations in the spring. He received his degree 



igna cum laude. The thesis was afterward published in the NeuesJahr- 

 buch, and gained great praise in America as well as abroad. The paper 

 is accompanied by four partial and twenty-two complete analyses of 

 rocks, by an elaborate geological map. and by three panoramic views. 

 Its special interest lies in the fact that it traces the differences in rock 

 types throughout one great single eruptive mass, which is shown in its 

 central part to be a trachyte containing hypersthene and labradorite, 

 but which passes toward the borders sometimes into liparite, sometimes 

 into andesite. 



Professor Klein desired Dr. Williams to go to Berlin, become his as- 

 ant. and continue his career in Germany. For a time in 1886, this 

 course was followed, but finally Dr. Williams returned to his home, and 

 in 1887 became director of the technical museum of the Pratt Institute 

 in Brooklyn. The duties consisted in arranging excellent collections of 

 minerals and rocks, but the desire for wider opportunities tor scientific 



