xxii OBITUARY NOTICES OF MEMBERS DECEASED. 



the highest type stricken in the midst of his hfe work, with the 

 brighter promises of his future unfulfilled. 



A memoir on the eminent chemist and mineralogist, Dr. F. A. 

 Genth, was read by him before the American Philosophical Society 

 in 1901, and also before the National Academy of Sciences. For 

 the latter society he also prepared an extended memoir of 

 another noted chemist, Matthew Carey Lea ; in which is given a 

 careful, critical resume of Lea's remarkable investigations and dis- 

 coveries, chiefly in chemistry, optics and photography. , 



Dr. Barker was born July 14, 1835, at Charlestown, Mass., and 

 attended school there, afterwards going to Berwick and Yarmouth 

 academies in Maine, and to Lawrence Academy in Groton, Mass. 

 When about sixteen he entered as apprentice the establishment of 

 J. M. Wightman in Boston, a maker of philosophical instruments, 

 and remained there five years. This apprentice period must have 

 given a training very valuable to one who was afterward to so freely 

 use scientific apparatus. After taking the degree of Bachelor of 

 Philosophy at the Sheffield Scientific School, where he was also 

 assistant to Professor Silliman, he entered the Harvard Medical 

 School as a student and assistant in chemistry. 



From this time his career as a science teacher and lecturer was 

 continued with but little interruption. He received the degree of 

 Doctor of Medicine from the Albany Medical College in 1863. having 

 completed his medical course there while Acting Professor of Chem- 

 istry in the school. In 1864 he served as professor of natural sci- 

 ences in the Western University of Pennsylvania, soon thereafter 

 going to Yale as demonstrator in the medical department, where in 

 1867 he was appointed Professor of Physiological Chemistry and 

 Toxicology, a chair which he held for six years, when he was 

 appointed Professor of Physics in the University of Pennsylvania. 

 Beginning in 1873 he continued this work as head of the department 

 for twenty-seven years, becoming Professor Emeritus in 1900. 



Before coming to Philadelphia he had acted as State Chemist in 

 Connecticut, giving testimony in some noted cases of poisoning. He 

 was also at times engaged as expert in patent cases, concerning 

 electric lighting, telephones, batteries and chemical processes. 



