Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Anthony, William Arnold

ANTHONY, William Arnold, physicist, b. in Coventry, R. I., 17 Nov., 1835. He was educated at the Yale (now Sheffield) scientific school, and received his degree in 1860. From 1857 to 1860 he was principal of a graded school in Crompton, R. I. During 1860-'61 he taught the sciences in the Providence Conference Seminary, East Greenwich, R. I., after which, from 1861 to 1868, he followed his profession in various capacities and in different localities. Again, from 1863 to 1867, he taught the sciences in Franklin, N. Y., and in 1867 he became professor of physics and chemistry in Antioch College, where he remained until 1870, when he was called to occupy a similar chair in Iowa Agricultural College. During 1872 he accepted the professorship of physics in the then recently established Cornell University, which he still occupies. Although his work has been principally that of teaching, he has found time to gratify his fondness for mechanics. He designed and constructed, during the years 1857-'61, two turbines, one of which gave an efficiency of 81 per cent., whose floats were carefully formed to curves deduced from a mathematical investigation of the flow of fluids. In 1875 he constructed a Gramme dynamo-electric machine for 25 ampères and 250 volts. This was built at a time when only the most general descriptions of such machines were at hand. He has also made a large tangent galvanometer which measures accurately currents from 1/10 to 250 ampères. Prof. Anthony is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. His published papers include contributions read before these societies, and other numerous scientific articles which have appeared in the “American Journal of Science,” “Journal of the Franklin Institute,” the “Popular Science Monthly,” and several electrical journals. He is joint author with Prof. C. F. Brackett of an “Elementary Text-book on Physics” (New York, 1885).