HAROLD WHITING. 357 



fornia, and was lost at sea, with his wife and four children, while 

 returning to Cambridge, on May 27, 1895. 



This bare recital of the principal epochs in Lis life is like a mere 

 pen and ink sketch of a vivid personality, lacking color, and convey- 

 ing no adequate idea of the man whose career was so suddenly closed. 

 This personality was so intense that one feels it difficult to realize 

 that he has left us, and one half expects to meet him on turning some 

 corner. 



He early manifested a remarkable aptitude for scientific subjects. 

 When little older than six or seven, it is related that he used to sit in 

 an arm-chair for long periods, his head sunk on his breast, and when 

 spoken to he would say, " Please don't interrupt me ! I have almost 

 got the theory." He was always observing, as well as thinking, even 

 before he could speak plainly, coming home from drives or walks with 

 such revelations as this : " I have found that an island is a steady 

 thing." 



My attention was first called to "Whiting when he was a Sophomore. 

 I was hearing a recitation in Physics, and had made some remarks 

 upon a scientific point. He arose and stoutly denied the truth of my 

 assertion. The class tried to suppress him by hissing, and by " Wood- 

 ing up," but he maintained his ground. I found that he was right, 

 and from that time began to observe him more closely. He was both 

 morally and physically courageous. While sailing in the harbor of 

 Plymouth he was capsized, and remained for a long time in a perilous 

 position in the water shut in by a fog. At length a fisherman hove 

 in sisht. Whitinsf, immersed in the water, took off his hat and made 

 the fisherman a low bow. The latter remarked, " Had n't you better 

 git in? " 



Dr. Whiting had a keen sense of humor mingled with a subtle wit. 

 There was nothing unkind in this wit, for he had too generous a heart 

 to knowingly wound any one. On looking over the proof of one of 

 his scientific papers I was puzzled by a certain involved mathematical 

 expression, and turned to him for an explanation. It was in reality a 

 very simple formula, and he remarked, in apologizing for its abstruse 

 form, " I have been so much annoyed by the involved mathematical 

 expressions of the English school of mathematicians that I determined 

 to give them a nut to crack." 



Dr. Whiting's idiosyncrasies were so strong that no team work was 

 possible for him. He could not be hitched up with any one. His 

 mind seemed to play about a subject much as certain forms of electricity 

 dart hither and thither about a summer cloud, frequently illumining 



