JANDAEY 14, 



SCIENCE. 



55 



in Europe, engaged in the study of the best 

 European establishments, and in selecting 

 apparatus for the better equipment of the 

 new'building to which his department was 

 to be transferred. While there he suffered 

 from a more than usually acute attack and 

 submitted to a difficult and dangerous sur- 

 gical-operation, which it was hoped might 

 lead to a permanent recovery. Only tem- 

 porary results followed, however, and 

 within the past five or six j^ears several 

 similar operations were performed with the 

 same result. His work in the lecture room 

 and laboratory was not seriously inter- 

 rupted, although carried on under condi- 

 tions that would have made it impossible 

 with most men. When, ten or fifteen years 

 ago, the creation of a new branch of en- 

 gineering began. Professor Kimball was not 

 slow to appreciate its importance, and the 

 Institute was among the first schools of 

 applied science to oifer a course in elec- 

 tricity with ample equipment of electrical 

 machinery and other appliances necessary to 

 its success. The management and develop- 

 ment of this course, along with the courses 

 iu pure physics, remained with him until 

 about two years ago, when its magnitude 

 became such that it was necessary to set 

 off the electrical engineering as a separate 

 department with a special professor at its 

 head. With lessened responsibility, his en- 

 thusiasm and, for a time, his activity 

 greatly increased, but his enjoyment of the 

 new conditions was cut off by his death, a 

 few weeks ago. 



Professor Kimball was uncommonly skill- 

 ful in experiment, possessing originality in 

 design and his work was done with that 

 sense of refinement and precision which is 

 essential to original research. Between the 

 years 1875 and 1880 he published in various 

 scientific journals a series of papers, each 

 the result of wisely planned and carefully 

 conducted experiment and all of much 

 value. The first was on ' Sliding Friction,' 



published in the American Journal of Science, 

 March, 1876. It marked the beginning of 

 an important investigation of the general 

 subject of friction, the results of which were 

 published in subsequent numbers of the 

 same journal, in Van Nostrand's Engineer- 

 ing Magazine and elsewhere. In these 

 papers he shows that friction between 

 sliding surfaces is independent of neither 

 velocity nor pressure, experiment pointing 

 to the existence of a maximum coefiicient 

 of friction depending on both velocity and 

 pressure. During these years there were 

 also other papers on the influence of temper 

 upon the physical properties of steel, the ef- 

 fect of magnetization on the physical proper- 

 ties of iron, etc. There was also prepared 

 and printed a small treatise on thermody- 

 namics, arranged especially for the use of 

 his pupils, exhibiting much originality and 

 clearness in method of presentation. 



From the quality of Professor Kimball's 

 work during this period there can be little 

 doubt that he would have achieved marked 

 distinction in his chosen field but for the 

 failure of his health, from which he never 

 recovered. From 1879 to his death, a 

 period of nearly twenty years, his fight was 

 against odds that must have long ago de- 

 feated any one endowed with only the ave- 

 rage human courage and tenacity of pur- 

 pose. Conscientiously discharging every 

 duty that the day brought, he had little 

 energy left for research work, although he 

 published occasional papers and was always 

 anxious to utilize any temporary increment 

 of vitality in that way. 



Although a member of numerous scien- 

 tific societies, Professor Kimball was rarely 

 seen at their meetings, his long illness thus 

 standing in the way of those intimate per- 

 sonal and social relations with his confreres 

 for which he was by nature so admirably 

 fitted. His manner was charming, his 

 good nature unceasing, his instincts fine 

 and noble. 



