4 o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



acquired a fondness for science. The beginnings of the applica- 

 tion of electricity to every-day life were manifesting themselves 

 in the development of telegraphy under the direction of Samnel 

 Finley Breese Morse. The wonderful richness of the Lake Supe- 

 rior region in mineral wealth had just been made known and the 

 first copper mines opened, revealing almost pure metallic copper 

 to the astounded world. It was also while Joy was a student at 

 Harvard that Louis Agassiz gave his first course of lectures be- 

 fore the Lowell Institute in Boston, and it may have been, indeed 

 perhaps was, these lectures that led him to abandon the following 

 of a legal career in order to become a scientist. Moreover, he was 

 happy at this time in meeting Charles T. Jackson, one of the most 

 interesting characters in the history of American chemistry, in 

 whose laboratory, which was early opened to private students, 

 the original researches on the anaesthetic properties of ether are 

 said to have been made. 



In 1847 Dr. Jackson was commissioned by Congress to survey 

 the mineral lands of Michigan, and promptly on finishing his 

 course at the law school Joy was invited to become a member of 

 the party, and continued with this expedition until the comple- 

 tion of its work. He then studied for a time in Dr. Jackson's 

 laboratory ; but realizing the impossibility of acquiring a thor- 

 ough training in chemistry in this country, he turned his steps 

 toward the Mecca of that science, and for two years studied in 

 Germany, first under Heinrich Rose in Berlin and then under 

 Friedrich Wohler in Gottingen, where in 1852 he took the degree 

 of Doctor of Philosophy. For an inaugural thesis the difficult 

 subject of the combination of alcohol radicals with selenium was 

 assigned to him, while at an adjoining desk a similar research 

 pertaining to the tellurium compounds was being carried on by 

 Prof. John W. Mallett, now of the University of Virginia. In 

 after years Prof. Joy 'frequently related to his classes how that, 

 owing to the offensive odors generated in the preparation of the 

 selenium and tellurium compounds, he and his fellow-student, 

 Mallett, were often the only two who remained at work. These 

 researches were among the earliest contributions to a class of 

 alcohol radicals combined with a metallic base that appeared in 

 chemical literature. After receiving his degree at Gottingen he 

 spent some time at the Sorbonne in Paris, where the brilliant 

 Dumas, then in his prime, lectured on chemistry. 



With a scientific training seldom equaled by any young man 

 he returned to America, and was promptly called to the chair of 

 Chemistry in Union College. This place he then held for four 

 years, during part of which time he was assisted by Charles F. 

 Chandler, who later became Professor of Analytical and Applied 

 Chemistry in the School of Mines of Columbia College, and, sub- 



