Jones, Harry Clary

(b. New London, Maryland, 11 November 1865; d. Baltimore, Maryland, 9 April 1916)

physical chemistry.

Jones was professor of physical chemistry at Johns Hopkins University and one of the pioneer promoters of this subject in the United States. The son and grandson of farmers, he always considered farming his avocation and, whenever he had the time, he spent it in managing and improving his three farms. His scientific career was determined during his elementary school years, by the reading of one of Tyndall’s books on science. science. Jones’s tremendous driving energy first showed itself in this decision: although poorly prepared for a scientific education, his enthusiasm enabled him to enter Johns Hopkins as a special student in 1887 and to secure his bacheloa’s degree two years later. He received his doctorate in June 1892.

During his graduate study Jones became fascinated by the newly developing field of physical chemistry. He spent the next two years studying with the masters in this field: Ostwald at Leipzig, Arrhenius at Stockholm, and van’t Hoff at Amsterdam. Ostwald and Arrhenius remained close personal friends of Jones’s for the rest of his life.

In 1894 Jones returned to Johns Hopkins as an honorary fellow and in the following year he became instructor in physical chemistry. He rose to full professor in 1903 and remained in this position until his death. In 1902 he married Harriet Brooks, of an old Baltimore family.

While studying with Arrhenius, Jones had investigated hydrates of sulfuric acid; his interest in solutions developed from this work. All of his later researches related in some way to an attempt to develop a general theory, a modification of Mendeleev’s concept that solution came from the formation of a series of solvates. In support of his theory Jones developed at least sixteen lines of evidence, the chief of which came from his studies of solubility, absorption spectra of solutions, electrolytic conductivity, and the influence of solvent and solute on each other. While van’t Hoff had concerned himself with the theory of ideal solutions, Jones studied the behavior of actual solutions. Much of his work was supported by the Carnegie Institution of Washington. In 1913 he received the Langstreth Medal of the Franklin Institute for his work.

In addition to his scientific papers Jones wrote twelve textbooks and semipopular scientific works. His most successful book was Elements of Physical Chemistry (1902), which was translated into Russian and Italian. He served on the editorial boards of Zeitschrift für physikalische Chemie, Journal de chimie physique, and Journal of the Franklin Institute. He was a man of strong opinions, with enormous energy and an insatiable desire for work, both in the laboratory and in preparing books and papers. These activities eventually led to a breakdown and his death at the age of fifty.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

There is a bibliography of 158 papers and twelve books by Jones and his co-workers in his posthumously published The Nature of Solution (New York, 1917), pp. 359-370.

There are short, appreciative obituaries in Nature, 97 (1916), 283; and Journal de chimie physique, 14 (1916), 488. A longer biographical sketch by E. Emmet Reid is in The Natuere of Solution, pp. vii-xiii.

Henry M. Leicester