566 JOHN HARRISON BLAKE. 



Washington Street, corner of Union Park Street ; he died in his home on 

 Marlborough Street, Boston, July 5, 1899, in his ninety-first year. Mr. 

 Blake was educated in private schools and in the English High School, 

 which he entered in 1821 as a member of its first class. Later he became 

 a pupil of the Rev. James Blake Howe, then rector of the West Parish 

 Church in Claremont, N. H., whose daughter, a second cousin, he mar- 

 ried on his return from his explorations in South America. 



While his studies with Mr. Howe were mainly classical and he was 

 fitted to enter Harvard, his interest in chemistry and in anatomy was such 

 as to lead him to prefer these studies to those of a collegiate course prin- 

 cipally literary and mathematical. It was in pursuit of his chosen 

 subjects that, after a period of study in a chemical manufacturing estab- 

 lishment, he became assistant to, and pupil of, Dr. Webster, from whom 

 he received valuable instruction, whicli enabled him in the year 1827, 

 when only nineteen years of age, to establish, with money advanced by 

 his father, the Norfolk Laboratory, for the manufacture of pure drugs 

 and chemicals. This laboratory was situated in Jamaica Plain near 

 Forest Hills, upon the Dedham Turnpike. One of its products was pure 

 sulphuric ether, and it was in the larger laboratory of later construction 

 that the ether used in the first demonstration of the value of ether anaes- 

 thesia was made under Mr. Blake's personal supervision. In addition to 

 the commercial work of the laboratory Mr. Blake carried on a series of 

 investigations into the physiological effects of poisons, the composition of 

 precious stones, and the production of alloys applicable to the mechanic 

 arts. At the end of three years of successful operation the buildings were 

 destroyed by a fire, resulting from the explosion of a carboy of ether, 

 but were immediately rebuilt on a larger scale ; a joint stock company was 

 formed, arrangements were made with the Rothschilds for the importation 

 of quicksilver, and with a house in Tuscany controlling what was then the 

 world's principal supply of boric acid ; and Mr. Maximilian Isnard, who 

 introduced the manufacture of beet-root sugar into France, became an 

 associate. 



At that time but little was known of the sources of supply of nitrate 

 of soda, of which large quantities were used in the works, beyond the 

 names of the small ports on the coast of Peru from which it was shipped. 



Ignorance on the subject, the value of the article, and the novelty of 

 entering and exploring an unknown region were sufficient incentives to 

 turn Mr. Blake's thoughts in this direction rather than along the beaten 

 lines of travel in search of tlie rest and recreation which he needed after 

 eight years of anxious labor. Books gave very little information concern- 



