May 30, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



859 



He entered upon tlie stady of law, which 

 he soon deserted, compelled by his inclina- 

 tion toward the physical sciences, the study 

 and the practical investigation of which, 

 together with mechanical occupations, had 

 been his habitual amusements from child- 

 hood. He began his life as educator by ac- 

 cepting a lectureship at the Episcopal Acad- 

 emy of Philadelphia, his own prepara- 

 tory school. He instantly became dis- 

 tinguished as a lecturer, and his clearness 

 of demonstration and the brilliancy and 

 ingenuity of his experiments, at the time 

 unprecedented, continued to contribute to 

 his fame throtighout his life and were 

 never excelled, if ever equaled, by later 

 and noted scientific lecturers. 



In 1863 he became Professor of Chem- 

 istry at the Philadelphia Dental College, 

 in 1864 Secretary of the Franklin Institute 

 and in 1867 the Editor of the Journal of 

 the Franklin Institute. Meantime, his 

 public lectures attracted enormous audi- 

 ences and his ingenious, original and tre- 

 mendously impressive experimental illus- 

 trations gave him a standing beside Tyn- 

 dall as a popularizer of science and per- 

 haps placed him fairly above that great 

 genius in this featiare of his lectures. 



As editor of the Journal of the Franklin 

 Institute, Morton accomplished an admir- 

 able work. He secured the contributions 

 of men of science and of technical and in- 

 dustrial writers foremost in their respective 

 departments, and his journal soon com- 

 manded the respect of the great authorities 

 on both sides of the Atlantic. This peri- 

 odical, founded in 1826, is quite as well 

 Imown abroad as at home, and files may be 

 found throughout Europe. It had long 

 been accepted as a leading organ of technic- 

 ally applied science; but, under the direc- 

 tion of the young and active and talented 

 man now coming to the editorial chair, it be- 

 came still more widely known and ex- 

 changed with the important scientific and 



technical periodicals of all countries. The 

 Abbe Moigno, editor of Les Mondes, the 

 well-known French journal of science. Dr. 

 Sehellen and many other famous men of 

 the time were among the friends made by 

 the young editor through liis work on the 

 Journal. 



In 1868, Professor Morton was made ad 

 interim Professor of Chemistry and Phys- 

 ics at the University of Pennsylvania, in 

 the temporary absence of Professor Eraser, 

 and, in 1869, he was given an independent 

 chair of chemistry. In the latter year 

 he took part in the work of the U. S. Solar 

 Eclipse Expedition and obtained excep- 

 tionally fine photographs of the eclipse. 

 He discovered and explained the cause of 

 the bright line on the disk of the sun be- 

 side the edge of the moon. This he showed 

 to be purely a photographic phenomenon. 

 His work attracted the attention and com- 

 mendation of Airy, De la Rue and other 

 astronomers. His pen was prolific of 

 original and useful papers at this time, and 

 their almost invariable reproduction abroad 

 testified to their admitted value among men 

 of science throughout the world. 



In 1870 came Morton's gTcat oppor- 

 tunity. By bequest, Mr. Edwin A. 

 Stevens, of Hoboken, had provided for the 

 foundation of 'an institution of learning' 

 which was to be organized for the benefit, 

 particularly, of 'the youth of the State 

 of New Jersey.' The testator and his ex- 

 ecutors were alike without any definite 

 idea of the form most desirable for such an 

 institution. Professor Morton was con- 

 sulted and, at his suggestion, the trustees 

 concluded to make the new 'institution of 

 learning' a school of mechanical engineer- 

 ing. At the time, as Morton pointed 

 out, there were schools of civil engineer- 

 ing practically competent to supply all the 

 instruction then demanded by aspirants 

 for admission to that branch of the pro- 

 fession of engineering; but there were no 



