10 HENRY A. KOWLAND 



many of them by his pupils, working out his suggestions and con- 

 stantly stimulated by his enthusiasm. A list of titles of papers ema- 

 nating from the physical laboratory of the Johns Hopkins University 

 during this period would show somewhat of the great intellectual fertil- 

 ity which its director inspired, and would show, especially, his continued 

 interest in magnetism and electricity, leading to his important investi- 

 gations relating to electric units and to his appointment as one of the 

 United States Delegates at important International Conventions for 

 the better determination and definition of these units. In 1883 a com- 

 mittee appointed by the Electrical Congress of 1881, of which Rowland 

 was a member, adopted 106 centimetres as the length of the mercury 

 column equivalent to the absolute ohm, but this was done against his 

 protest, for his own measurements showed that this was too small by 

 about three-tenths of one per cent. His judgment was confirmed by 

 the Chamber of Delegates of the International Congress of 1893, of 

 which Rowland was himself President, and by which definitive values 

 were given to a system of international units. 



Rowland's interest in applied science cannot be passed over, for it 

 was constantly showing itself, often, perhaps, unbidden, an unconscious 

 bursting forth of that strong engineering instinct which was born in 

 him, to which he often referred in familiar discourse, and which would 

 unquestionably have brought him great success and distinction had he 

 allowed it to direct the course of his life. Although everywhere looked 

 upon as one of the foremost exponents of pure science, his ability as an 

 engineer received frequent recognition in his appointment as expert 

 and counsel in some of the most important engineering operations in 

 the latter part of the century. He was an inventor, and might easily 

 have taken first rank as such had he chosen to devote himself to that 

 sort of work. During the last few years of his life he was much occu- 

 pied with the study of alternating electric currents and their applica- 

 tion to a system of rapid telegraphy of his own invention. A year ago 

 his system received the award of a grand prix at the Paris Exposition, 

 and only a few weeks after his death the daily papers published cable- 

 grams from Berlin announcing its complete success as tested between 

 Berlin and Hamburg, and also the intention of the German Postal 

 Department to make extensive use of it. 



But behind Rowland, the profound scholar and original investigator, 

 the engineer, mechanician and inventor, was Rowland the man, and 

 any estimate of his influence in promoting the interests of physical 

 science during the last quarter of the nineteenth century would be 



