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Hn flDemoriam.

Whitney Blahe, XX. 2).

Eorn Bpril 20, 1836,
Die^ October I, 1895.

In the following pages will be found a brief
account of the life and character of Eli Whitney
Blake, LL. D., who was for twenty-five years Hazard
Professor of Physics at Brown University.

It has been thought proper that some permanent
record should be made of a noble and influential life,
so modestly lived that its course was seldom marked
by the conspicuous events which usually help to
preserve the memory of an active career.

During his lifetime Professor Blake madr manv
friends, but his devotion to his work often prevented
the close and frequent association which both he and
they desired. Such friends will be glad to preserve
in this slight memorial sketch, a record of his work
and some suggestion of his personality.

ELI WHITNEY BLAKE, LLD.

Eli Whitney Blake was born in New Haven,
Connecticut, April twentieth, 1836. He was the son
of Eli Whitney Blake and Eliza Maria O'Brien, his
wife ; the one a nephew of Eli Whitney, the inventor,
the other a great-grand-daughter of Rev. James
Pierpont, the principal founder of Yale College.

He graduated from Yale in the class of 1857,
holding membership in the Delta Kappa Epsilon fra-
ternity, the Skull and Bones, and other societies.

After graduation he spent a year in teaching at
a private school in Unionville, Connecticut, and sub-
sequently studied for another year in the Sheffield
Scientific School.

Later he studied for three and a half years in
Germany ; at Heidelberg under Kirchhoff and Bunsen,
at Marburg under Kolbe, at Berlin under Dove and
Magnus. He devoted his attention to both chemistry

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and physics, for although he became ultimately a
physicist, it was his original intention to be a chemist.

Returning to America, he became Professor pro
tempore of Chemistry and Physics in the University of
Vermont, holding this chair during the college year
1866-7.

In 1868-9 he was Acting Professor of Physics
in Columbia College, and was then appointed Pro-
fessor of Physics and the Mechanical Arts at the
newly-opened Cornell University.

From 1870 to 1895 he was Hazard Professor of
Physics in Brown University.

Professor Blake received the degree of A. M. from
the University of Vermont, and that of LL.D. from
Brown University.

Owing to ill-health in his family, he resigned his
chair in the spring of 1895. His own fatal illness,
however, began even before this time, his constitution
having been overtaxed by the continuous and confining
duties of his profession. His death occurred at Hamp-
ton, Connecticut, October first, 1895.

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Professor Blake was twice married, and his sec-
ond wife, Elizabeth Ellery Vernon, survives him. By
his first wife, Helen M. Rood, who died in 1869, he
leaves a daughter, Alida Gouverneur, married in 1881
to Barclay Hazard of Santa Barbara, California, and
a son, Eli Whitney Blake, now of Syracuse, N. Y.

Professor Blake inherited exceedingly strong me-
chanical and scientific tendencies, and was an inde-
fatigable worker in the laboratory. His experiments
extended into all departments of physics, and were
generally made with apparatus designed and con-
structed by himself. It has been deeply and widely
regretted that the excessive routine duties of his po-
sition prevented his following the marked bent of his
genius toward scientific investigation and invention.
The little that he had leisure to do in this direction
was of such quality as to make his name known and
esteemed in the scientific world, both in this country
and abroad. His beautiful device for photographing

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the motion of metallic plates vibrating under human
speech, merits special mention even in this rapid
sketch.

One of Professor Blake's most characteristic traits
was the enthusiastic welcome, and wherever possible,
the disinterested aid, which he gave to every dawning
invention or discovery in which he could discern the
promise of genuine service to science or mankind. From
this double point of view, it was his great pleasure, during
the winter of 1876-7, in connection with his intimate
friend, Prof. John Pierce, to assist Mr. Alexander
Graham Bell in experiments with the telephone —
then in the very early stages of its development.

Among Professor Blake's published papers may be
mentioned the following:

1. Stereoscopic Advertisements :

Am. Jour, of Science and Arts, 2d Series, v. SO, p. 304.

2. On a method of producing, by the electric spark,

figures similar to those of Lichtenberg:

lb. v. 49, p. 289.

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3. On the presence of rubiduim and caesium in

triphyline :

lb. v. S3, p. S74.

4. A method of recording articulate vibrations by

means of photography :

Ib. 3d Series, v. 16, p. 54.

5. The human ear-drum:

Journal of Otology, Boston.

Wilson Hall, the superb physical laboratory of
Brown University, stands as a monument not only to
the generosity of the late George F. Wilson, through
whose bequest it was erected, but also to the un-
wearied and conscientious labors of Professor Blake,
who personally designed, to the smallest details, the
admirable arrangements of the building.

Modest and unassuming as was his nature, Pro-
fessor Blake was always ready to perform, for the
good of the community in which he lived, any service
which he deemed appropriate to his position. His
varied interests may be inferred from the fact that
at various times during his residence in Providence

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he served as President of the Free Kindergarten
Association ; as Vestryman of St. John's Church ; as
Trustee of the Rhode Island Hospital; as a Director
of the Providence Athenaeum ; as member of the Li-
brary Committee of Brown University ; and as mem-
ber of the School Committee of the City of Provi-
dence. He was also a member of the Berzelius Club ;
the Churchmen's Club ; the Friday Evening Club, and
Doctors' Club, of Providence; and of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science.

Professor Blake possessed mental powers of a
high order, combining a singularly keen insight with
great breadth of view. His colleagues at Brown
University recognized this in his clear, philosophical
treatment of those complex ethical, intellectual and
practical questions which continually confront a col-
lege faculty.

He was a man of pure and noble character. His
sensitive reverence for truth led to extreme consci-
entiousness, a delicate sense of honor, and firm moral

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courage; qualities which were a part of himself, and
in no sense worn as garments to be put on and off.
His interest in his students and his affection for them
were genuine and enduring. One of the most unselfish
of men, he was also one of the most loving and
most beloved of friends.

Although he allowed himself very little social
enjoyment, he was a highly valued member of sev-
eral informal societies, where he was warmly welcomed
as a man brilliant in literature and conversation; as
an affectionate and delightful companion.

To quote the words of an old friend, " Pure in
heart, knightly in conduct, he was thoroughly a
Christian gentleman."

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EXTRACT FROM THE REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT OP
BROWN UNIVERSITY, JUNE, 1895.

Much to the pain of his colleagues, Professor Eli
W. Blake has felt obliged, owing to Mrs. Blake's ill
health, to resign the Hazard Professorship of Physics,
which he has held with such credit to himself and to the
University since 1870. It is no disparagement to the
exertions of President Wayland, Dr. Caswell and Pro-
fessor Greene, to name Professor Blake as in effect
the creator of the department of physics as it exists
in Brown University to-day. He devised and launched
the general courses in physics now taught ; he devised
and for years personally conducted the special courses
for laboratory students — work never done here until
his time ; he selected nearly all our valuable physical
apparatus, much of this being of his own invention
and constructed by his own hands ; and he has re-
paired and rendered of service many of the then
useless instruments which were in the University's
possession when he came. His labors and his judg-
ment, as a member of the building committee, in

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arranging and constructing Wilson Hall, were con-
spicuous and invaluable.

Professor Blake has distinguished himself not only
in the class room and in the laboratory but also as a
faculty adviser and as a promoter, in every way, of
the welfare of the University. Though not a gradu-
ate here, he has entered heartily into all schemes for
enlarging the University's resources and usefulness.
His pecuniary gifts to these ends amount to a large
sum. His wide mental sympathies, making him,
while a physicist, much besides, his serious though
benevolent character, his public spirit, placing him
among the noted and most useful citizens of Providence,
his unvarying gentlemanliness, and his generosity to
students and others when in need, wonderfully endear
Professor Blake to his colleagues and pupils as well
as to all others who have the good fortune to know
him.

At its regular meeting on May 30, 1895, the
faculty of the University adopted the following minute
lor its records and for transmission to Professor Blake.

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" The facujty, being informed that Professor Eli
Whitney Blake, for twenty-five years professor of
physics in the University, has resigned his chair, sends
to him its greetings, and expresses to him from each
and every member of the board the best wishes for
his health and happiness, and at the same time the
most sincere regret that he has decided to withdraw
from the University.

" Professor Blake's services to Brown University
have been such that no one who knows him can have
failed to recognize his devotion to his chosen branch
of science, most constant industry in that laboratory
which is a memorial of his thought and skill as well
as a monument to its generous donor, his deep interest
in the welfare of his pupils, and the conscientiousness
with which he applied himself to every task to which
his duty called him. While his high attainments as
a scholar and a man of science have secured for him
the respect alike of his colleagues and his pupils, his
genuiness of nature, his high sense of honor and duty
and truth, his sweetness of temper and his purity
of soul have added to respect an enduring and sincere
affection."

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MINUTE OF THE DOCTOR'S CLUB OF PROVIDENCE.

In /Dem or tarn.

ELI WHITNEY BLAKE.

Through the death of Professor Eli Whitney
Blake the Doctor's Club of Providence, for the first
time in its history of over twenty years, has been
called to mourn for the decease of a brother member.
The members of the club assembled in regular meet-
ing to-day desire hereby to express their love for
their departed brother, and their deep sense of loss
and bereavement.

He was a man illumined and guided by a gra-
cious spirit from his birth. His inborn and inherited
gifts were quickened and enlarged by generous culture.
He was a master in his chosen field of science, and
in other fields his attainments were large. His great
learning he used without stint for the good of others,

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both through unwearied devotion to those whom he
formally instructed, and through the many offices and
relations by which he served and edified the bodies
with which he was officially connected, the community
in which he lived, and the friends whom he loved.
Through a gentleness that was strong, through a
patience that was courageous, through the great
sympathies of a heart in which abounded the
most cheerful mirth and the tenderest compas-
sion, he made life sweeter and better for those with
whom his life was spent. Scrupulous in all his
conduct, unwearying in fidelity, stainless in honour,
loving his fellow man, he also loved his God and
believed in Him, with the firm, but simple and child-
like faith of a Christian. To those who remain his
death seems untimely, for the world had need of
him, but after his faithful toil which has consumed
him, he rests in his God who in His infinite wisdom
and love has called him to Himself.

His brothers of the Doctor's Club, remembering
him with great love, recalling fondly all their affec-

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tionate converse with him in the past, acknowledging
gratefully all the comfort, help and inspiration to better
thinking and living, that they have derived from him,
and uttering their regret at his death, desire at the
same time to convey their hearthfelt sympathy to those
of his own household, family and kindred who have
been blessed by his most intimate companionship and
tenderest love, and who are now called to mourn for
him most deeply.

BY THE DOCTOR'S CLUB,

WILLIAM CAREY POLAND,

Committee.

PROVIDENCE, Twenty -sixth October, 1895.

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