dedication of his books as the "founder of modern American blastfurnace practice." Gayley made of Johnson a pupil and gave him valuable advice and assistance during the early days of his establishment as a consulting engineer in New York City. On the day of Johnson's death, Gayley wrote me as follows:

"American metallurgy of iron has lost its shining light and the world is poorer thereby. . . . Esrey Johnson is and was the greatest man in the metallurgy of iron and the clearest thinker of any man today. He seems like a younger brother gone and none come to fill his place."

Johnson always identified himself with the public work of his profession and community. He was for many years a member of the principal engineering societies, and especially of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, The Mining and Metallurgical Society of America and the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers. His pen has enriched the literature of these and other societies on both sides of the Atlantic. His interests naturally brought him more closely into affiliation with the A. I. M. E. for whom he served as a member of the Board of Directors and chairman and member of many prominent committees, including the vice-chairmanship of the Iron and Steel Committee. Of recent years he has been active in guiding the policies of this Institute, and at the time of his death was, besides a director, a member of the Executive Committee and chairman of the Committee on Admissions. BRADLEY STOUGHTON.

SKETCH OF LIFE *

Joseph E. Johnson, Jr., was killed accidentally at Hartsdale, N. Y., on the morning of Apr. 4. On the way from his home to the railway station he paused for an automobile to pass. The automobile skidded and struck him, knocking him down and fracturing his skull. He died an hour later without regaining consciousness. The news of this sad accident came as a shock to his host of friends in the profession and outside of it.

J. E. Johnson, Jr., was born at Longdale, Va., in 1870, the son of Major J. E. Johnson, who was the manager of the Longdale Iron Co. He was graduated from Haverford College in 1888. He received the degree of mechanical engineer from the same college in 1891, and in 1892 obtained a degree from Cornell University. In the meanwhile he had begun practical work, first as a draftsman for the Baldwin Locomotive Works. Having finished his studies at Cornell, he was engaged from 1892 to 1894 with the Straight Line Engine Co. and the Cranbery Iron and Coal Co. In 1894-95 he was assistant to the superintendent of the Ames Iron Works, and in 1895-99 was engineer and assistant mana* W. R. Ingalls, in Engineering and Mining Journal, Apr. 12, 1919.

ger of the Longdale Iron Co. Leaving that position, Mr. Johnson worked with the Carnegie Steel Co. in 1899-1901, being identified with its blastfurnace department. In 1901 he returned to his old position with the Longdale Iron Co. with which he remained until 1906. From 1906 to 1909 he was general manager of the Princess Furnace Co., operating blast furnaces, ore mines and a railroad. During 1909 and 1910 he was general superintendent for the Republic Iron and Steel Co. at Thomas, Ala., operating three blast furnaces and 900 coke ovens.

From 1910 to 1913 Mr. Johnson was manager of the Ashland plant of the Lake Superior Iron and Chemical Co. at Ashland, Wis. In 1913 he opened an office as consulting engineer in New York, and had made this his headquarters since that time. This is a bare outline of his extensive and active career in work among iron mines and furnaces and coking plants. He gained comprehensive experience as a mechanical engineer, as mining engineer and as metallurgical engineer and was splendidly fitted for consulting practice when he entered it.

Previous to his entry into general consulting practice, Mr. Johnson had done much technical work of a major character, which had won for him high professional recognition. His remarkable versatility was exhibited in the variety and wide range of his interests. The introduction of a masterly method of mining, the designing of some ingenious mining machinery, the arrangement of a clever system of tramway transportation, the improvement in blast-furnace practice, the study of the quality of pig iron and the means for raising the grades, were all subjects that engaged his attention with distinctly useful results. He was a generous contributor to the technical press and described his work and offered his ideas in papers in the Engineering and Mining Journal, Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, the American Machinist, Iron Age, and the Transactions of the American Institute of Mining Engineers. Besides these contributions, which were invariably noteworthy, he was the author of treatises on "Blast-furnace Construction in America" (1917), followed by "The Principles, Operation and Products of the Blast Furnace" (1918). In his preface to the former work he said: "I happen to have made several investigations which served to explain some of the phenomena of the blast furnace not previously understood, and it seemed proper that the results should be recorded. . . . In many cases my opinions are given for what they may be worth, because it seems to me that those books which simply give a number of opinions without any indication of the author's preference are of little real use." This expression was thoroughly characteristic of the man.

The best efforts of Johnson's leisure for more than three years were spent upon this book, which dealt chiefly with the mechanical side of the blast furnace. It was written in that exact and clear language that was characteristic of its author, which made it easy for everyone to read

and put it within the grasp of any intelligent furnace-man. The succeed ing treatise exhibited the same admirable qualities.

In a review of "Blast-furnace Construction" by Bradley Stoughton, than whom no one is more competent to pronounce an opinion, Johnson's professional status was excellently summarized in the following paragraph:

"Probably no living person is qualified for so many different reasons to write a book on this subject as is J. E. Johnson, Jr. His father was an important American ironmaster, and this author may be said to have been born and bred around a blast furnace. For more than 20 years he has held a prominent position as operator, inventor, author, and interpreter. Two of his achievements in the latter capacity would alone be sufficient to place him in the first rank of modern scientific interpreters; namely, his theory of the constitution of cast iron, which has since been expanded and elaborated by himself and others, and his theory of the critical temperature of the blast furnace, which is now generally accepted as the explanation of the saving effected by drying blast, which was once considered (especially by German theorists) as super-theoretical and, therefore, impossible."

In his work as consulting engineer Mr. Johnson found a wide field of activity. One of his recent important works was a professional mission to China. Just previous to his untimely death he had been devoting himself to a new study in the metallurgy of iron, in which he was intensely interested and as to the successful outcome and practical value of which he had great hopes.

Personally, Mr. Johnson was a most lovable character. He had a natural gift for making friends, all of whom enjoyed him immensely. He was a broadminded man, whose interests were far wider than those of his profession. He was a good citizen. He was a wonderfully clear thinker, and his views were invariably characterized by a striking originality. Added to this was his art of frank, clear, and illuminating expression. A sleepy meeting always woke up promptly when Johnson rose to make any remarks. There is nobody to fill the chair that he has left vacant.

Mr. Johnson was a member of the Mining and Metallurgical Society of America and a member of the board of directors of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, in which he was marked for high honor. He resided in a beautiful old-fashioned home at Hartsdale, where he leaves a widow and a young son.

RESOLUTION OF BOARD OF DIRECTORS

The resolution drafted by J. W. Richards, J. V. N. Dorr, and Allen H. Rogers on the death of J. E. Johnson, Jr., and adopted by the Board of Directors, is as follows:

"The Board of Directors of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers wishes to place on record its great personal loss in the sudden death of Mr. J. E. Johnson, Jr., our fellow Director of the activities of the Institute, a member of our Executive Committee, Chairman of the Institute's Committee on Admissions, and Vice-chairman of its Iron and Steel Committee.

"A mere recital of these positions of trust and responsibility, which he filled with conscientious efficiency and marked ability, shows how greatly the Institute has lost by his death. No one else of the Institute's officers could have been so illy spared. We, his colleagues, take up his tasks with a sense of our inability to discharge them as well as he, and this with a doubled sense of our loss.

"Others have written and spoken of the blow which his death has been to the furtherance of the metallurgy of iron and steel. His preeminence in this line is one of the facts of which the Institute is justly proud. Here his personality, originality, courageousness in advocating new principles, clearness of writing and forcible presentation of facts, are irreplaceable. His two great treatises on the blast furnace are his literary and scientific memorial.

"We speak but briefly of our personal sense of loss: our incisive but also constructive critic, our helpful organizer, our ever-willing coworker, our cheerful, smiling, optimistic, and most respected friend, our intimate companion, our open-hearted comrade, has 'passed on'and yet his memory shall be our good cheer and inspiration to further service.

"In the name of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, we express its sympathy with his bereaved widow and son, and to the outside world we publish this expression of the appreciation of the Institute of his great services to it and of his valuable contributions to the progress of applied science in the industries."

Henry Clay Frick

HENRY CLAY FRICK, a pioneer in modern coke and steel industry and, in more recent years, one of the outstanding financiers of America, died on Dec. 2, 1919, at his home on Fifth Avenue, New York. Although he had been ill since election day, when he had an attack of indigestion which developed into ptomaine poisoning, his death was a surprise to all. He is survived by his widow, Adelaide Howard Childs Frick; a son, Childs Frick, one unmarried daughter, Helen C. Frick, and four grandchildren.

A quiet funeral service was conducted at the Frick home on Wednesday afternoon by the Rev. Dr. Leighton Parks, pastor of St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church. This was attended by members and very intimate friends of the family, Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Officers of the Links Club, and Directors of the United States Steel Corpn.

Henry Clay Frick was born Dec. 19, 1849, in West Overland, Westmoreland Co., Pa. His father, John W. Frick, was a farmer of Swiss ancestry, and his mother, Elizabeth Overholt Frick, a member of an old Mennonite family. Until he was sixteen, he spent his time at school, on his father's farm, and in his grandfather's distillery, where he kept books. He attended Otterbein University, in Ohio, for a year.

Frick, learning that coke was an essential of the already rapidly developing steel business, early invested every cent he could get in cokingcoal lands. With the help of an associate of his grandfather, he formed the corporation of Frick & Co., coke dealers, and acquired fifty-one ovens in the Connellsville region and 300 acres of soft-coal lands. During the panic of '73, with the help of Judge Thomas Mellon, a Pittsburgh banker, he bought out his partners and while coke was selling at 90 cents a ton enlarged his purchases of suitable lands. Later, the price of coke increased until it was selling at $5 a ton. Before he was 30 years old, Frick was rated a millionaire.

ASSOCIATION WITH CARNEGIE

In 1878, he sold an interest in the business to E. M. Ferguson of New York, and later a share to Mr. Ferguson's brother. Four years later the business was reorganized into the H. C. Frick Coke Co. with vast coal lands, great banks of ovens, and a capitalization of $2,000,000. Then began his association with Andrew Carnegie. He exchanged a part of his coke interest for shares in Carnegie Brothers of Pittsburgh,