Hampden Sydney College - Kaleidoscope Yearbook (Hampden Sydney, VA)

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CAMPUS SCENES

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others were incorrect in their supposition that steel can be magnetized by exposure to violent light. In IS37 he commenced a series of researches upon the nature of the rays of light in the spectrum. Using the then little-known spectroscope, Draper showed first that all solids become self-luminous at a temperature of 9770 F., and that they then yield a con- tinuous spectrumg and that as the temperature of the body rises it emits more refrangible iays, the intensity of the rays previously emitted also increasing. In 1843 Draper photo- graphed the dark lines in the solar spectrum, and in l857 he showed the superiority of diffraction over prismatic spectra. He devoted special energy to the study of the ultra- violet, or, as he styled them, tithonic rays .... V . . In IS39 Draper obtained portraits, for the first time, by the daguerreotype process. Early in I840 Draper succeeded in taking the first photograph of the moon: the time occupied was twenty minutes, and the size of the figure about one inch in diameter. In l85I he secured phosphorescent images of the moon. To measure the chemical intensity of light Draper devised in I843 a chlor-hydrogen photometer, an instrument which was subsequently perfected and employed by Bunsen and Roscoe. Draper was among the first, if not the hrst, to obtain photographs of microscopic objects by combining the camera with the microscope. He used daguerreotypes obtained in this way to illustrate his lec- tures on physiology given at the University of New York between l845 and l850. Draper applied his studies on capillary attraction to explain the motion of the sap in plants, and between 1834 and I856 he published several papers upon this and kindred subjects, including the passage of gases through liquids, the circulation of the blood, etc .... In IS75 the American Academy of Arts and Sciences gave Draper the Rumford medal for his Researches in Radiant Energy, the president justly declaring him to have taken a prominent rank in the advance of science throughout the world. Draper was led, as he declares, by his physiological studies, to apply to nations the same laws of growth and development, presenting the results in his History of the Intellectual Development of Europe fI862J, a book which has been translated into many languages. Another work which has been highly praised for its impartiality and philosophical elevation is Draper's History of the American Civil War, published IS67-70. In l874 Draper wrote the History of the Conflict Between Science and Religion, to which Professor Tyndall wrote the preface. By many, Draper has been regarded as a materialist, but he was a theist and a firm believer in a future state. In the Royal Society's Catalogue of Scientific Papers, Draper's name is appended to fifty-one!! Article signed by Professor W. Jerome Harrison, in Vol. XVI, D. N. B., l888. Dr. Draper had relatives settled in Mecklenburg County, and it was these he joined on coming to America a few years afler 1830. His was the active mind of a Liverpool man-as soon as he had taken his degree in medicine at Philadelphia, he got in touch with a few public-spirited residents of Southside Virginia who felt the importance of a close study of local mineralogy. It was this connection that brought Draper to Hampden-Sidney College. It is not impossible that he had been a short time in South America before coming to Virginia. His brother-in-law, Professor Gardner fwho succeeded him at Hampden-Sidney Collegej. was from Brazil. While at Hampden-Sidney, Dr. Draper was influential in getting the Medical College of Virginia started, under the charter of Hampden-Sidney College. The late Dr. John Peter Metlauer owned a copy of Draper's early volume of papers, The Effect of Light on Plants, Src. This book, fortunately, is now deposited in the Library of Hampden-Sidney College. A half dozen or more of the papers in this book were based on experiments done at Hampden-Sidney. A. M. 13

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TIBEIIIIIIDPI1-S7ih11PQ Hiring Hearn Agn 030 By Addison H ogue . CWashington and Lee University., .,.5 ,. ES, Many years ago, but still not as far back as the Revolutionary fi iq War-for even I cannot remember the surrender at Yorktown,-- though I perfectly recall the capture and burning of Richmond in IS65-an event that is as purely historical to the college boys of today as is the Yorktown surrender. tht -ii . . . . - . Some of the Confederate soldiers were able to return to college to finish an interrupted education, and their presence gave a tone and seriousness of purpose that is not always to be found now-a-days. 2 ': Some of them came to Hampden-Sidney, and a far larger proportion were at the Seminary. Into this kind of companionship I entered in September, IS66, as a green Sophomore. Green? I certainly was, and I can prove it. I actually began my college career under the impression that college students always have their lessons excellently prepared! I knew that school boys often missed their lessonsg but college students were a far higher order of beings. CI may add just here, in an undertone and in sacred confidence, that I do not hold that view as firmly now as I did then., In that Sophomore Class, there was only one student who had been a Freshman the year before, unless my memory is sorely at fault, and so we all had to get acquainted with one another as we began our Latin, Greek and Mathematics, each study coming five times a week. There is hardly any better way to indicate the difference between the studies then and now, than to say that when the dozen of us stood before Doctor Atkinson in June, IS69, to receive our diplomas, every one of us had studied everything that every Professor taught! No wonder you open your eyes in amazement! But we had only five Professors. We had no French, no German, no English, no History fnot even in the Latin and Greekl, and no laboratory courses of any kind. Rev. Dr. Atkinson, our noble and honored President, taught us Mental Philosophy in the Junior year, and Logic, Political Economy, Butler's Analogy and Moral Science in the Senior year. Professor Holladay taught us Chemistry when we were Juniors, and when we were Seniors he taught us Physics, Astronomy and Geology. In those days the chemical symbol for water was HO, Since then the Hydrogen part of the combination has somehow sneaked up on the Oxygen, even though Oxygen is so sharp, and so H20 is now and has long been, the symbol for water in chemical language. 15