OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (MORTON MUNDE.) 



461 



brilliantly illustrated that they gave him a high 

 standing as a popular lecturer. He was invited 

 to the chair of Physics and Chemistry in the 

 University of Pennsylvania during the absence of 

 Prof. John F. Frazer in 1867-'68, and in 1869 the 

 professorship was divided and the chair of Chem- 

 istry was assigned 

 to him. In 1870 

 he resigned his 

 connection with 

 the Franklin In- 

 stitute to accept 

 the presidential 

 chair of the Ste- 

 vens Institute of 

 Technology, then 

 about to be organ- 

 ized in Hoboken, 

 N. J., under the 

 will of Edwin A. 

 Stevens. The 

 building of this in- 

 stitution was then 

 in course of erec- 

 tion, and Presi- 

 dent Morton was 

 entrusted with the 



selection of a faculty, with whom he arranged the 

 courses of instruction. This office he continued to 

 hold until his death, having, in 1880, presented the 

 institution with a workshop fitted up with steam- 

 engines and machine tools at a cost of more than 

 $10,000. In 1883 he established the department of 

 applied electricity, presenting $2,500 for the pur- 

 chase of electrical apparatus and machinery, and 

 guaranteeing the salary of the professor who 

 should take charge of that department. Again, in 

 1888, he gave $10,000 to the institution as the first 

 instalment with which to endow a chair of Engi- 

 neering Practise, to which, in 1892, he added a sim- 

 ilar amount. At the time of the celebration of 

 the twenty-fifth anniversary of the organization 

 of the institution he added $25,000 to his dona- 

 tions, and in 1900 $15,000, and again in 1901 

 $50,000. His total contributions to the funds of 

 Stevens Institute amounted to more than $150,- 

 000. Dr. Morton organized and conducted the 

 photographic department of the Eclipse Expedi- 

 tion that was sent, in 1869, to Iowa under the 

 auspices of the United States Nautical Almanac 

 Office. He obtained numerous satisfactory ex- 

 posures, and was the first to prove the true na- 

 ture of the bright light of the sun's disk adjacent 

 to the edge of the moon, seen in partial phase- 

 eclipse photographs. This phenomenon, which 

 had been previously noticed by Stephen Alex- 

 ander, Warren de la Rue, and Sir George B. 

 Airy, was explained as a subjective effect not 

 really existing in the picture but developed to the 

 eye by contrast. President Morton was a mem- 

 ber of the private expedition that was organized 

 by Henry Draper to observe the total solar 

 eclipse of July 29, 1878, at Rawlins, Wyo. His 

 most important and extensive researches were on 

 the fluorescent and absorption spectra of the 

 uranium salts, in connection with which he ex- 

 amined the spectrum of anthracene, pyrene, 

 chrysene, and a new solid hydrocarbon found in 

 certain petroleum distillates. This new body he 

 named thallene, from its brilliant green fluores- 

 cence. In 1878 he was appointed to the va- 

 cancy on the Lighthouse Board caused by the 

 death of Joseph Henry, and he continued in that 

 office seven years, conducting meanwhile various 

 investigations on fog-signals, electric lighting, 

 fire-extinguishers, illuminating buoys, and like 

 subjects, which appeared in the annual reports of 



the board. President Morton appeared frequently 

 in court as an expert on questions relating to 

 chemistry and physics in connection with patent 

 suits, and acquired an extended reputation for 

 that work. His printed testimony, it is said, " if 

 collected in separate form, would equal in volume 

 a set of Scott's novels." The degree of Ph. D. 

 was conferred upon him by Dickinson College in 

 1869, and by Princeton in 1871, and that of 

 D. Sc. by Pennsylvania, and LL. D. by Princeton 

 in 1897. In 1874 he was chosen to the National 

 Academy of Sciences, on several of whose com- 

 missions he served. During 1867-70 he was edi- 

 tor of the journal of the Franklin Institute. Be- 

 sides articles on electricity and fluorescence con- 

 tributed to the Universal Cyclopaedia, he pub- 

 lished the results of his researches in the scien- 

 tific journals of this country and Europe. He 

 was associated in the preparation of The Stu- 

 dent's Practical Chemistry (Philadelphia, 1868), 

 and also, during his college course in 1859, in the 

 publication of a translation of the trilingual 

 hieroglyphic inscription of the Rosetta stone, for 

 which he made the lithographic drawings. (See 

 Biographical Notice of President Henry Morton, 

 Ph. D., of the Stevens Institute of Technology, 

 prepared by Prof. Coleman Sellers, E. D., and 

 Prof. Albert R. Leeds, Ph. D., New York, 1892.) 



Morton, Julius Sterling, agriculturist, born 

 in Adams, N. Y., April 22, 1832; died in Lake 

 Forest, 111., April 27, 1902. He was graduated at 

 Union College in 1854; removed to Nebraska 

 City in 1855; became editor of the Nebraska 

 City News; a member of the Territorial Legisla- 

 ture in 1856 and 1857; secretary of the Territory 

 in 1858; acting Governor on the resignation of 

 Gov. Richardson a few months later; and was ap- 

 pointed Secretary of the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture in 1893, which post he held 

 till 1897. Mr. Morton was the originator of 

 Arbor Day; one of the original members of the 

 Nebraska Territorial Board of Agriculture and 

 of the Territorial Horticultural Society; later 

 served as president of both organizations; was a 

 charter member of the Nebraska State Histor- 

 ical Society, of which he also was president; and 

 was editor of the Conservative, a weekly journal. 



Moses, Adolph, rabbi, born in Posen about 

 1840; died in Louisville, Ky., Jan. 8, 1902. He 

 was graduated at Breslau University, and became 

 a teacher of Hebrew. He was a soldier under 

 Garibaldi; came to the United States in the six- 

 ties, and from that time till his death preached 

 in Montgomery and Mobile, Ala., and for twenty- 

 one years was rabbi of the Temple Adas Israel 

 in Louisville, Ky. He also studied medicine and 

 received the degree of M. D. Rabbi Moses was 

 an eloquent speaker and a forceful writer. His 

 publications include Religion of Moses ; Loser, the 

 Watchmaker; and frequent contributions to the 

 weekly press. 



Munde, Paul Fortunatus, surgeon, born in 

 Dresden, Saxony, Sept. 7, 1846; died in New York 

 city, Feb. 7, 1902. In 1863 he entered the Medical 

 Department of Yale University, but left before 

 his course was completed to enter the National 

 army as medical cadet. After serving six months 

 he went to the Harvard Medical School, where 

 he was graduated in 1866, and went to Germany. 

 He became assistant surgeon in the Bavarian 

 army, and served through the war of 1866, after 

 which he was on hospital duty at Wiirzburg. In 

 1870 he enlisted in the Bavarian army as battal- 

 ion surgeon with the rank of 1st lieutenant, and 

 served in the Franco-Prussian War. In 1872 he 

 returned to the United States, where he made a 

 specialty of gynecology. He was Professor of 



