304 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVII. No. 425. 



In 1870-1, he was the Chief Engineer 

 of the U. S. Ship Canal Exploring Ex- 

 pedition to Tehuantepec and Nicaragua, 

 under Admiral Shufeldt, conducting its 

 engineering and geodetic work and writing 

 a report of great value. 



In 1871 he became a consulting engineer, 

 and practiced his profession in and near 

 New York until, in 1873, called to Cornell 

 University to take direction of the depart- 

 ment of civil engineering. In this posi- 

 tion he spent the remainder of his profes- 

 sional life, and built his noblest monument 

 in the erection of the present College of 

 Civil Engineering and the establishment of 

 its courses of instruction. 



Commencing the work, in 1873, in two 

 small rooms of an old wooden structure on 

 the university campus, with an equipment 

 which, as he reported, 'could be packed 

 into a space of about thirty cubic feet,' 

 under the guidance of its enthusiastic 

 director, with the assistance of an able 

 faculty, and with a student-body consisting 

 of but a handful of pupils, the institution 

 has grown until it now occupies forty-two 

 rooms, and about two hundred and fifty 

 students are inadequately accommodated 

 in a large stone structure. Its faculty, 

 exclusive of a dozen in the non-professional 

 departments of the university and of a 

 number of non-resident 'special lecturers,' 

 numbers eighteen, and the resources of 

 faculty and equipment are taxed to their 

 utmost. The greatest of all the great en- 

 terprises recently planned and pushed to 

 completion, under the supervision of the 

 director of the college, is the adjunct hy- 

 draulic laboratory on the bank of Fall 

 Creek, adjacent to the university grounds, 

 commanding the drainage of 120 square 

 miles of territory, equipped for measure- 

 ment of every variety of hydraulic flow, 

 and which has been employed since its 

 construction in many researches under the 

 direction of the college and for the state 



and United States Executive Departments. 

 His last, though a lesser undertaking, the A. 

 C. Barnes Astronomical Observatory, was 

 also the fruition of years of thought, study 

 and careful designing. 



The life of Mr. Puertes closed with the 

 completion of great enterprises; but his 

 highest satisfaction was felt in the success 

 of the young men sent out into professional 

 wort, well equipped and well trained. His 

 reports in recent years have reiterated the 

 statement that the demand for these young 

 men was exceeding the supply and his last 

 report included the assertion that but one 

 of the regiment of alumni was known to be 

 out of employment — a young man just re- 

 turned from abroad. The record and the 

 retrospect were exceedingly satisfying to 

 the organizer and upbuilder of this great 

 work when retiring from his almost life- 

 long task. 



While too busy to accept much outside 

 woi'k in his later years, one of his greatest 

 and most useful tasks was accomplished 

 quite recently— the project for the sanitary 

 improvement of the city and harbor of 

 Santos, Brazil. The plans for this work 

 wei"e as remarkable for their extent and 

 . completeness as was the work for its mag- 

 nitude. 



At the close of his course of professional 

 study, Mr. Fuertes married Mary Stone 

 Perry, of Troy, who survives him. He 

 leaves five adult children, one of whom, 

 Mr. James Hillhouse Fuertes, is already 

 well known as a successful practitioner in 

 engineering, and another, Mr. Louis Agas- 

 siz Fuertes, has won distinction as a fol- 

 lower in the steps of Audubon ; all inherit 

 something of the parents' talents. 



Professor Fuertes was a man of strong 

 individuality. Earnest and ambitious, sen- 

 sitive and sympathetic, his warmth of heart 

 and his easily touched sympathies admir- 

 ably complemented his more vigorous facul- 

 ties, and, in all the struggles and strifes of 



