OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (HERTZ HINCKS.) 



581 



Her interest in the public schools of Boston led her 

 to found new and practical departments of instruc- 

 tion, including classes in cooking and in gymnastics, 

 and out of this work grew the Boston Normal School 

 of Gymnastics. She was one of the largest contribu- 

 tors to the North Bennet Street Industrial School ; 

 aided in founding Miss Bradley 's school at Wil miner- 

 ton, N. C. ; was active in promoting educational work 

 among the Indians ; and was a patron of many schools 

 in the South. Mrs. Hemenway bequeathed to the 

 Peabody Museum of Ethnology in Cambridge the col- 

 lections of archaeological specimens gathered in Ari- 

 zona and New Mexico by Frank II. Cushing and Dr. 

 J. Walter Fewkes. 



Hertz, Heinrich, experimental discoverer of electro- 

 magnetic radiation ; born in Hamburg, Germany, 

 Feb.- 22, 1857; died in Bonn, Switzerland, Jan. 1, 

 1894. He was a son of Dr. Gustavus Hertz. After 

 receiving his primary education in a private school 

 and attending a high school for one year he began to 

 study with a view'to becoming a civil engineer, but 

 abandoned the idea, and after serving his time in the 

 army took a course in physics at Munich under Ilelm- 

 holtz, whose assistant he became in 1880. In 1883 he 

 became Professor of Theoretical Physics at Kiel, and 

 in 1885 he accepted the same chair in the technical 

 high school at Carlsruhe. In 1889 he was called to 

 succeed the celebrated Clausius at Bonn, where he re- 

 mained till his death. During the last few years of 

 his life his health was not good and in the winter of 

 1892-'93 a severe illness had prevented him from dis- 

 charging his professional duties. A relapse proved 

 fatal, the cause of his death being blood poisoning. 

 Prof. Hertz devoted himself to electrical researches. 

 His great discovery, which gave him a world-wide 

 reputation while he was only thirty years of age, may 

 be stated briefly and untechnically as the experi- 

 mental demonstration of the fact that an electric dis- 

 turbance is propagated through space progressively, 

 and does not move instantaneously by means of " ac- 

 tion at a distance"; that when the disturbance is 

 periodic it has all the properties of a wave of light or 

 radiant heat, except that the wave length is much 

 longer, and that therefore there seems to be no reason 

 for doubting the identity of the two phenomena ; in 

 other words, that light is an electromagnetic phenom- 

 enon (see " Annual Cyclopedia," 1889, p. 694). To 

 appreciate the historical position of Hertz in the estab- 

 lishment of this fact, wnich is one of the most im- 

 portant in the domain of physics, comparable with the 

 discovery of universal gravitation by Newton, it will 

 be necessary to review the work of some other in- 

 vestigators. The idea that the waves of light were 

 electromagnetic was originated and developed theo- 

 retically by Clerk Maxwell, the English physicist, 

 and scientific men have long been familiar with it, 

 but though it appeared probable its demonstration 

 seemed to be impossible. The fact that electric in- 

 fluence is propagated through space has also long 

 been known. Recently the introduction of rapidly 

 alternating electric currents, and the discovery that a 

 sudden discharge, as that of a Leyden jar, is oscilla- 

 tory, and, in fact, consists of a current changing direc- 

 tion at the, rate of many thousand times a second, 

 though lasting but a small fraction of that time, have 

 given an impulse to the study of the influence of such 

 currents on surrounding space. In England, Fitz- 

 gerald, Lodge, and others pointed out that they must 

 give rise to waves of some sort, and various proposals 

 were made for producing these waves continuously 

 and for measuring arid experimenting upon them, but 

 none of these bore fruit. Hertz, who finally solved the 

 problem, was led to work upon it somewhat indirect- 

 ly. In 1879 the Berlin Academy of Sciences proposed 

 the problem to establish by experiment a relation be- 

 tween electromagnetic forces and dielectric polariza- 

 tion. While working upon this Hertz's attention was 

 attracted by the oscillatory phenomena of the Leyden- 

 jar discharge just described. Later, at Carlsruhe, he 

 succeeded in producing electrical oscillations of very 

 short period (about one hundred millionth of a sec- 



ond) which he described in WiedemannVAnnalen" 

 in 1887, in a paper " On Very Rapid Electric Oscilla- 

 tions "the first of a series of 12 memoirs, now be- 

 come classical, which were republished later in a 

 volume with the title " Untersuchungen iiber die 

 Ausbreitung der Elektrischen Kraft," translated into 

 English in 1893. The discoveries described in these 

 papers were made possible by Hertz's invention and 

 application of a device for detecting electromagnetic 

 waves in space, consisting of a resonating circuit with 

 an air gap, the resistance of which is broken down 

 by the well-timed impulses of a wave with which it 

 is in tune, so that visible sparks are produced. This 

 enabled him to prove that the waves can be reflected, 

 transmitted, refracted, polarized, etc., exactly as light 

 waves. The steps that led to this discovery had been 

 taken in England rather than in Germany; hence 

 it was that English physicists appreciated their sig- 

 nificance and importance before Hertz's own compa- 

 triots. " Continental science," says Prof. O. J. Lodge, 

 u was, in fact, by no means ripe for a clear apprecia- 

 tion of these experiments, and even now it is surpris- 

 ing that a Continental philosopher should have reaped 

 the fruits of the theoretical seed sown in England." 

 The Koyal Society bestowed upon him in 1890 its 

 Rumford medal. 'Hertz was most lovable, and pos- 

 sessed modesty that seemed thoroughly proof against 

 the praises bestowed upon him from all sides. His 

 courtesy and cordial recognition of the claims and 

 merits of his coworkers were especially noteworthy. 

 Foreign scientific men received a hearty welcome at 

 his house, and his personal relations with his students 

 were also of the pleasaritest character. Though Prof. 

 Hertz was an investigator rather than an expo- 

 nent of science, he could interest an audience in his 

 subject, as he showed in his address in 1889 before 

 the Naturforscher Versammlung at Heidelberg on 

 " The Relations between Light and Electricity," which 

 attracted great attention in Germany, passing rapidly 

 through several editions. He left also completed a 

 work on " The Principles of Mechanics." In addition 

 to the work on electricity that has given him his 

 fame, Hertz experimented on the time of contact 

 of elastic bodies in the act of rebounding, and he 

 discovered the effect of ultraviolet light in promot- 

 ing the electrical discharge a discovery that has led 

 to a long series of investigations, and seems likely to 

 lead to important results. He was also a member of the 

 English Society for Psychical Research, and seemed 

 disposed to look favorably upon investigations into 

 the obscure phenomena with which it has to do, 

 which are often scouted by physicists. 



Hincks, Edward Winslow, military officer, born in 

 Bucksport, Me., May 30, 1830; died in Cambridge, 

 Mass., Feb. 14, 1894. He learned the printer's trade 

 in the office of the "Daily Whig and Courier" in 

 Bangor, and was engaged in the printing and pub- 

 lishing business in Boston in 1849-'56. Under ap- 

 pointment in the office of the Secretary of the Com- 

 monwealth he prepared for publication the State 

 census returns of 1855. Subsequently he studied'law 

 with Anson Burlingame. He began his military 

 career in 1859 as adjutant of the 8th Massachusetts 

 Militia, and was the first recorded volunteer in the 

 civil war, offering his services to Major Anderson for 

 the defense of Fort Moultrie on Dec. 18, 1860. On 

 April 15, 1861, he offered his services to Gov. Andrew, 

 on the following day marched into Boston with three 

 companies of volunteers from Marblehead, and on the 

 26th reached Washington, D. C., and was commis- 

 sioned a 2d lieutenant 2d United States Cavalry. 

 Four days afterward he was appointed lieutenant 

 colonel 8th Massachusetts Infantry, and on Aug. 3 

 following colonel of the 19th Massachusetts Infantry. 

 He took part in the battle of Ball's Bluff, Va., Oct. 21, 



1861 ; the siege of Yorktown, April, 1862 ; the engage- 

 ment at West Point, May 7 ; Fair Oaks, June 1 ; Oak 

 Grove, June 25 : Peach Orchard and Savage Station, 

 June 29; White Oak Swamp and Nelson's Farm, 

 June 30 ; Chantilly, Sept. 1 ; South Mountain, Sept. 

 14; Antietam, Sept. 16 and 17; Baylor's Farm, V a., 



