MEMORIAL OF JOSEPH AUSTIN HOLMES 25 



to greatly reduce the cost of radium compounds to the consumer. "The 

 process is to he patented and dedicated to the public." 2 



Investigations have been started to reduce the great loss of $75,000,000 

 annually, due to coking coal in beehive ovens. As a result already some 

 of this loss has been reduced through the use of by-product ovens and the 

 utilization of the by-products obtained. 



Doctor Holmes called attention to the annual waste of over $4,500,000 

 in brass-furnace practice, and then had prepared a report showing how, 

 by practical means, this waste can be largely prevented. 



These are some of the investigations that Doctor Holmes has had taken 

 up by the Bureau of Mines, and they illustrate the wide scope of the work 

 he was planning for the Bureau to undertake. Its development into one 

 of the most important of all the Federal. Bureaus has been phenomenal 

 and is due not only to the indefatigable work of the Director, but to the 

 fact that he was a splendid judge of men and their capacity for work and 

 was able to surround himself with the type of men who were able to carry 

 out the plans his master mind had conceived, and these men were loyal 

 and true to him. - ,.■'■. 



He was thoughtful and considerate of his associates; and while he may 

 have demanded much of them, he always gave them full credit for work 

 done; and of the reports of the investigations carried out by the Bureau 

 but Aery few bear his name as author. Credit is given to him who car- 

 ried on the investigation. Doctor Holmes planned the character of the 

 investigation, then put it up to one of his associates to do the detailed 

 work. What he wanted was results. He had little time to write for pub- 

 lication or to think about personal advancement, and he left it to bis 

 associates to do the writing and give him the results — and. results he 

 surely obtained. 



Although Doctor Holmes is the author of but comparatively few publi- 

 cations, yet he has been personally responsible for the publication of many 

 important scientific and economic papers, because he has had the fore- 

 sight to open up new fields of investigation and secure the properly 

 trained men to carry on the work he outlined. I doubt if there has ever 

 been a man who surpassed him in this respect. 



This faculty of Doctor Holmes showed itself soon after he became 

 State Geologist of North Carolina in 1891. In this position he had wide 

 latitude for planning out a varied line of investigations relating to many 

 subjects, inasmuch as the object of the State Survey was the investigation 

 of all natural resources of the State. Almost as soon as he was appointed 

 State Geologist, he began to plan new lines of work and to call in to assist 



2 Van H. Manning: Jour. Ind. and Eng. Cheni., vol. 7, No. S, p. 71G, Aug., 1915. 



