SKETCH OF HENRY BRADFORD NASON. 695 



fessorship of Chemistry and Natural Science at Troy. After a sec- 

 ond visit to Europe, he made a tour of geological study in the 

 Southern States in the spring of 1860. In the next year he traveled 

 through Ireland, Scotland, Holland, Belgium, and a part of Germany, 

 and spent a semester in Gottingen in the study of geology and mineral- 

 ogy, under Waltei'liausen. He then visited and studied the volcanic 

 regions of Italy, ascended Mount Vesuvius, explored the regions of 

 the solfatara, climbed Mount Etna, examined the glaciers of Switz- 

 erland and the configuration of the Alpine regions ; and, in France, 

 inspected the natural curiosities of the Puy-de-D6me. In 18T2 and 

 1875 he made three visits to California, in the course of which he trav- 

 eled in Nevada and Idaho, and the mining regions of Colorado and 

 Utah, and included in his third trip the Yosemite Valley. He spent 

 the summer of 1877 in northern Europe — Finland and Russia — when 

 he enjoyed as a privilege the traversing of the fields which Linnaeus 

 had explored for material for his great botanical work. In the next 

 year he was appointed by President Hayes juror for the United States 

 at the Paris Exposition, and was assigned to the department of miner- 

 alogy. Having engaged, in 1880, in the service of an oil company as 

 chemical adviser and expert, he has since devoted much time and at- 

 tention to the refining of petroleum, methods of testing, and the com- 

 position and analysis of crude oils. In the course of these investiga- 

 tions he has been able to throw considerable light on the important 

 subject of the prevention of the nuisances arising from the processes 

 of treating petroleum. In 1881 the New York State Board of Health 

 selected him to be inspector of petroleum-oils, and appointed him a 

 commissioner to London to consider methods of dealing with petro- 

 leum nuisances. Another visit to northern Europe, in the summer of 

 1881, embraced the fiords and glaciers of Norway, and was extended 

 to the North Cape. 



Professor Nason's published works include an " Inaugural Disser- 

 tation on the Formation of Ether" (1857) ; "Table of Reactions for 

 Qualitative Analysis " (1865) ; a translation and revision of Wohler's 

 "Hand-Book of Mineral Analysis" (1868) ; "Table for Qualitative 

 Analysis in Colors " (1870) ; an edition of Elderhorst's " Manual of 

 Blowpipe Analysis" (1873, followed by fourth and fifth editions in 

 1875 and 1876) ; an edition of the " Manual of Blowpipe Analysis and 

 Determinative Mineralogy " (1880) ; and a semi-centennial catalogue, 

 the "Proceedings of the Semi-Centennial Celebration," and a "Bio- 

 graphical Record " of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institution. Besides re- 

 ceiving numerous college and university honors, Professor Nason has 

 been elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement 

 of Science ; Fellow of the London Chemical Society, and of the Society 

 of Chemical Industry ; member of the American Chemical Society, of 

 the New Yoi'k Academy of Sciences, of the American Institute of Min- 

 ing Engineers, of the Troy Scientific Association ; an honorary mem- 



