JOHN MORSE ORDWAY. 911 



JOHN MORSE ORDWAY (1823-1909) 



Fellow in Class I, Section 3, 1861. 



John Morse Ordway was born at Amesbury, Mass., April 23, 1823. 

 He was graduated from Dartmouth College in 1844, and immediately 

 took up manufacturing chemistry, including a wide variety of materials. 

 In 1869 he was appointed Professor of Metallurgy and Industrial 

 Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he 

 remained until 1884. During this period he not only showed great 

 zeal and devotion in his work as a teacher, but continued his close 

 association with the technical field. About 1871 he designed and 

 constructed furnaces for assaying, smelting and refining metals, in 

 which these operations could be carried on in the laboratories of the 

 Institute upon such a scale as to be of practical value, this being the 

 first time that such work had been introduced into any educational 

 institution. He was much interested in the promotion of education of 

 women in science, and in 1876 a special chemical laboratory for 

 women was established at the Institute through his endeavors. He 

 directed the work of this laboratory in addition to other duties. 



He was elected an Associate Fellow of the iVcademy in 1861, was a 

 member of the Council from 1878 to 1881, and a member of the Rum- 

 ford Committee from 1871 to 1881. 



In 1884 he accepted a professorship in Tulane University, and was 

 also Professor of Biology in H. Sophie Newcomb College, which is a 

 part of Tulane University, which position he held until a short time 

 before his death in 1909. 



He was an enthusiastic teacher, a stimulating lecturer, and a 

 versatile worker, who both through his students and his varied re- 

 searches contributed much to chemical science. 



H. P. Talbot. 



