John Joseph CartySource: The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 36, No. 3 (Mar., 1933), pp. 286-288Published by: American Association for the Advancement of ScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/15379 .

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286 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

men he discovers one like Dr. George Gaylord Simpson, to whom he can confi- dently entrnst the huge paleontological investigations of the next generation.

The same generous, friendly spirit has animated Professor Osborni's per- sonal and family life. His wife, Lu- cretia Perry Osborn, was also his com- plete partner, who shared with him every civic and scientifie labor and every triumph. She was, truly the "Spirit of Castle Rock," their residence at Garri- son, New York, and no guest of theirs will ever forget a visit with them. And now his sons and daughters and grand- children rejoice that at seventy-six he labors on with undiminished zest.

Fortunately it was not because of fail- ing power that Professor Osborn re- signed the presidency of the board of trustees of the American Museum of Natural History, but because he had discovered among his younger associates a man whom he recognized as able and willing to carry the great burden of that office. It was no mere gesture then when Professor Osborn, on the occasion of the inauguration of Mr. H. Trubee Davison as his successor, spoke of the world-wide explorations of the museum and then suddenly picked up a large terrestrial globe and placed it in Mr. Davison 's monmentarily hesitant armns.

And it is no wonder that the latter spoke feelingly of his realization of the mag- nitude of his task. But all those who know well both Professor Osborn and Mr. Davison have the greatest confi- dence in the result. And both the hono- rary president, the new president and the board of trustees will doubtless continue to entrust the entire internal manage- inent of their ship to Director George H. Sherwood, who has long been responsible for the smnooth working of its vast and comiplicated machinery.

Thus Professor Osborn will now have more leisure to devote to the completion of the series of mnonographs for which lie has long been justly famous among the paleontologists of the world. The monograph on "The Evolution of the Titanotheres," published in 1929 as the result of twenty years' work, nlumbered 953 pages and included 797 text figures and 236 plates. The monograph on "The Proboscidea, now nearing com- pletion, will make even the Titanothere monograph look small. Meanwhile among the almost nine hundred num- bers of his scientific writings, the "Age of Mammals," "Men of the Old Stone Age" and "The Origin and Evolution of Life" continue to hold a deservedly high place in the estimation of his ad- miring public.

JOHN JOSEPH CARTY

DR. JOHN J. CARTY, pioneer in the de- velopment of the telephone art since its early days, died on December 27 at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Born in Cam- bridge, Massachusetts, in 1861, Carty comnpleted a course in the Cambridge Latin School and in 1879 began his tele- phone career, three years after the tele- phone's invention, when he entered the employ of the Telephone Dispatch Com- pany of Boston. His natural ability and his fondness for scientific investiga- tion led to a long series of valua ble con- tributions to the advancement of the

telephone art. Concerning them Dr. F. B. Jewett writes in Scietece:

"His invention of the 'comnmon bat- tery' for supplying operating current froin a single central office battery to any number of interconnected telephones maade practical the commercial develop- ment of telephony in metropolitan areas.

"His development of the high resis- tance bridging signal bell for subscribers substations to replace the theretofore universally employed low resistance series bell, tore the hampering shackles from a wide-spread extension in the use

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THE PoRsOGRESS OFT SCIENCEo 287

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288 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

of the telephone. Every telephone set now in use einploys sneh a signal.

"Eqnally revolutionary and of a more distinctly scientific character was his discovery that the principal cause of cross interference between telephone cir- cnits was electrostatic and not electro- magnetic unbalance. This discovery and the rules which General Carty worked out for the proper construetion of adjacent telephone eirenits are now universally employed."

Many important engineering problems confronted General Carty dnring the years while he served as chief engineer of the Americani Telephone and Tele- graph Com-pany. Perhaps the most notable of these was the completion in 1915 of the transcontinental telephone line which nmade possible the first trans- mission of speech between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and thns achieved a dream which Carty himuself had lonig cherished-nation-wide telephone ser- vice. Shortly after this achievem-tent was announced, engineers working un- der Carty's direction accomplished the first suecessful transmission of speech by radiotelephone from New York to San Francisco, to the Hawaiianx Islands and to Paris-the pioneer efforts in the developiment of a systenm of radiotele- phone facilities which now are practi- cally world-wide in their reach.

In 1919 General Carty was elected vice-president of the Anmerican Tele- phone an-cd Telegraph Company in charge of the departnment of develop- ment and research. In 1925 he was also made ehairman of the board of directors of the Bell Telephone Lahoratories. He retired fromi active participation in tele- phone work in 1930.

Among the scientifie and engineering awards which have been granted to Gen- eral Carty are: The Edward Longstreth Medal, the Franiklin Medal for enminent service in science, the Edison Medal for 4 4work in the science and art of tele- phone engineering," the Johin Fritz Gold Medal "for pioneer achievemnent in

telephone engineering and in the de- velopment of scientific research in the telephone art." The National Academy of Sciences established the John J. Carty Medal in his honor, and made the first award to him, the actuLal presentation of which was to have taken place at its an- nual m'neeting in April.

In his tribute Dr. Jewett writes: "General Carty had an insatiable de-

sire to elnlarge his own fund of informiia- tion ancd understanding. All who canme in contact with him, fromi the most wise to the miiost frivolous and shallow, were subjects for his inquiry. He gave much and willingly of his store of knowledge and wisdom-l but in return, and fre- quently in ways unknown to his vis-a- vis, he exacted paymnent in full mueasure. At times this. payment was in kind; more frequently thian not it was in val- ues quite foreign to the main subject- matter of the conversation. At the ter- m ination of the contact General Carty haid invariably sonmething new added to his already great store of knowledge- a bit of social history or customi, a hitherto unknown itenl of scieniee, a peectliar slant of political thinking, or any other of the thousancd and one things whliehl involve the working of humiian emiotions or the humiian mind.

"His relentless, search into the way human beings react alnd into the mnotives which gu-Liide their thought and action, and whose results he continually miar- shaled and remarshaled under the gui- dance of his incisively analytical mindi, becanme a muain source of his extraordi- nary capacity for beinlg always at lhomlie in any comipany. Few m-nen possess the capacity whieh General Carty had for meeting on a plane of complete under- stanidingy men anid womuen of every social and inltellectual gradation. It was a capacity which enabled him in every situation to give and receive knowledge and to influence the outcomle of evenits in ways and in a manner which were frequently uncanmiy."

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