408 LEADING AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



take the course in Mechanical Engineering. Apparently he was 

 not admitted to the regular course but was admitted as a special 

 student in Chemistry. A very interesting letter written by him to 

 his mother in 1868, soon after his arrival at New Haven, has been 

 preserved. This is so significant that the principal part of it is 

 here given: 



"You probably all think that I am careless about the future 

 but there is no one who thinks more about it than I do, and this 

 is the reason why I do not like to talk about it. I feel as if it was 

 my duty and vocation to be an investigator in science and I felt 

 something like a Jonah when I came here to study mechanical 

 engineering. I know I am best fitted for it and it is only a question 

 of dollars that decided me. Besides that I have such a liking for 

 experiment that I cannot think it was given to me to be a torment 

 all my life as it would be if I did anything else. As to the practical 

 part of it, I can only say that what other people have done / can 

 do and other people have made their living by it (or something 

 similar) and therefore I can do it." 



Of his work at New Haven, Prof. George J. Brush writes: 



"While here he showed himself to be an exceedingly intelligent 

 and persistent student, interested not only in the regular course in 

 analytical and general chemistry, but in many subjects not included 

 in the course. Professor Johnson, with whom I have just been 

 conversing about Rowland, recalls R's great enthusiasm in mak- 

 ing metallic lithium by electrolysis. We saw in him a man of 

 unusual ability and great promise, but his stay here was too brief 

 for us to gain anything more than this general impression." 



He spent only one year at New Haven and then returned to 

 Troy. In 1870, he received the degree of Civil Engineer. He was 

 now out in the world. What next? The only thing that offered 

 itself was a job at surveying, and at this he went. During the 

 next year an opportunity presented itself to him of going to Cali- 

 fornia. In a letter written June, 1871, he says, in regard to this: 

 "There is nothing I should like better if I had time to devote to a 

 year of pleasure, but I have other work before me." From the 

 autumn of 1871 to the summer of 1872, he taught chemistry 



