412 LEADING AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



result is of fundamental importance to electrical theory. Maxwell, 

 who was fond of versifying, writes in regard to this experiment: 



"The mounted disk of ebonite 



Has whirled before nor whirled in vain, 

 Rowland of Troy, that doughty knight, 



Convection currents did obtain, 

 In such a disk, of power to wheedle 

 From its loved north the subtle needle. 



Other less skilful experimenters have failed to get the effect 

 described by Rowland but, finally, after his death, it was shown 

 beyond a question that he was right. He never for a moment 

 doubted it. 



At the end of the year spent in Europe, Rowland came to Balti- 

 more to make preparations for the opening of the university in 

 the autumn of 1876. It was some time in the summer that he made 

 his first visit to the city that was to be his home for the next twenty- 

 five years the rest of his life. On this occasion, the writer, who 

 had been appointed professor of chemistry on the same day that 

 Rowland had been appointed professor of physics, also visited 

 Baltimore, and the two who were to be so long and so intimately 

 associated met for the first time. We spent a few very hot days in 

 talking over plans with President Oilman. It was arranged that 

 Rowland was to have for his laboratory some back rooms of the 

 two dwelling-houses which were to serve as the temporary seat 

 of the Johns Hopkins University. He said, " All I want is the back 

 kitchen and a solid pier built up from the ground." He got in 

 fact a number of small rooms but they were a sorry lot. Such 

 changes as he asked for were made. While in Europe he had 

 ordered apparatus freely the best that could be had not for 

 lecture experiments, but for scientific work of the greatest refine- 

 ment and importance. The equipment of the " laboratory" was 

 all that could be desired all that was desired by the man who was 

 to work in it, who was to make the kitchen and the " back building" 

 famous. 



I remember that first meeting very clearly. The impression 



