834 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



various projects, measures, and reforms, with which he has become 

 identified. Science is devoted to the interests of truth, but that truth 

 is for the service of humanity ; and the work of research becomes of 

 the highest vakie only in its large Baconian application to the " relief 

 of the estate of man." It is through the intelligent and well-directed 

 efforts of such men as Dr. Chandler that the fruits of science are appli- 

 cable for the large amelioration and advantage of society. It is, more- 

 over by the substantial and lasting benefits thus gained that the com- 

 munity is led to recognize its great debt to science which it discharges 

 by increasingly liberal provisions for its cultivation and development. 



Professor Chandler was born at Lancaster, Massachusetts, in 1836. 

 His father became a merchant in New Bedford, where he still resides. 

 On the maternal side he is descended from the rebels of the Revolu- 

 tion and on his father's side from the Tories. His maternal grand- 

 father was John Whitney, an old Boston merchant ; his grandmother 

 was a daughter of John Slack, who fought at Lexington. The Chan- 

 dlers originated Avith William Chandler and Annis his wife, who arrived 

 in Roxbury, Massachusetts, from England in 1637. It was at Lancas- 

 ter, Massachusetts, in the house of his grandfather, Nathaniel Chandler, 

 who graduated at Harvard in 1792, that Professor Chandler was born. 



Hunting chiastolites and other minerals at Lancaster during vaca- 

 tions, and attending lyceum lectures and listening to the elder Agassiz, 

 led him to take an early interest in scientific studies, and while still a 

 boy he turned his workshop in the attic into a laboratory. After 

 graduating at the high school, he continued his classical studies pri- 

 vately with a friend of the family for a year, and then pursued his 

 professional studies at the Lawrence Scientific School, and the Uni- 

 versities of Gottingen and Berlin. 



His teachers in chemistry have been Horsf ord, Wohler, and Heinrich 

 Rose. Through the influence of Wohler and his friend Professor Joy 

 he obtained the position of private assistant to Rose during the year 

 he spent in Berlin, in whose laboratory his only companion, besides 

 Rose and his lecture assistant Oesten, was the now famous Nils Erich 

 Nordenskjold, the Arctic explorer. In physics he studied with Weber, 

 Dove, and Magnus ; in mineralogy he attended the lectures of Pro- 

 fessor Cooke at Harvard, Von Waltershausen in Gottingen, and Gus- 

 tav Rose in Berlin. In geology he listened to the lectures of Agassiz. 

 In 1856 he received his degree of Doctor of Philosophy and Master of 

 Arts at Gottingen, publishing a dissertation containing the results of 

 miscellaneous chemical investigations. 



Soon after his return to America he accepted the position of as- 

 sistant at Union College under his friend Professor Joy ; and when, 

 soon after, this gentleman was called to Columbia College, Chandler 

 immediately succeeded to his duties, and began lecturing to the Senior 

 Class, though not yet " of age " — politically. He remained here for 

 eight years in charge of the laboratory, and lecturing to the col- 



