4 08 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



mine, which can now be had for sixty cents a pound, was sell- 

 ing at sixteen dollars an ounce. The results of his investiga- 

 tions were published in the American Journal of Science. They 

 showed that bromine could be obtained from these waters for 

 much less than it was then costing, and resulted in the estab- 

 lishment of a plant at Pomeroy, Ohio, which produces the 

 greater part of the world's present supply of this substance. 



In similar public and private employments the rest of his 

 life was passed. He was Agricultural Chemist for the State 

 of Ohio, and secretary of the State Board of Agriculture from 

 1850 to 1854. During part of this time he edited the West- 

 ern Agriculturist, and during the last year was member for 

 Ohio of the U. S. Board of Agriculture. He also continued to 

 make examinations of mineral lands. His first wife having 

 died, he married in 1851 Mrs. Mary (Harries) Curtis, who sur- 

 vived him. By this marriage he had one son. The person of 

 Prof. Mather was large and robust, and he had a great ca- 

 pacity for physical and mental labour, all of which promised 

 a long life. This expectation, however, was not realized. He 

 died Feb. 26, 1859, in Columbus, Ohio, at the age of fifty-four. 

 His death was sudden and was ascribed to a complication of 

 dropsy and paralysis. 



In addition to his writings already mentioned, Prof. Mather 

 contributed frequent papers to the American Journal of 

 Science and other scientific periodicals, and he wrote many re- 

 ports on the explorations made in the course of his profes- 

 sional work. He received the degree of LL. D. from Brown 

 University in 1855, was a member of twenty-five scientific and 

 literary organizations, a life-member of many religious asso- 

 ciations, and for fifteen years a trustee of Granville College. 



In his various expeditions he collected large numbers of 

 minerals and geological specimens. His collection was much 

 increased by exchanges with American and foreign geologists, 

 and at his death contained about twenty-six thousand speci- 

 mens. At present it is owned by his son, Richard, of Ironton, 

 Ohio. 



Mr. Austin thus describes his character : " Equable in his 

 disposition and gentle in his manners, considerate of others 

 and just in his judgment of them, modest, but manly and self- 

 reliant, thoroughly versed in the branches of science to which 

 he devoted himself, he had neither dogmatism nor ostentation. 



