MAY'ER, ALFRED MARSHALL ( 1836-97). An American physicist. Ile was born at Baltimore and was educated at Saint Mary's College. Baltimore. In 1856 he was appointed professor of physics and chemistry in the University of Maryland. and subsequently held positions in the Westminster College in Missouri. in Pennsylvania State Col Wee. in Lehigh University. and in the Stevens Institute of Technology. In 1863 he went to Paris, where he spent two years in study and research, working under the famous physicist Regnault. He was for a time one of the editors of the American .Journal of Science, and con tributed a number of papers to its pages. In 1872 he was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. After assuming the pro fessorship of physics at Stevens Institute (18711 he devoted himself to acoustics, in which field he performed many new and interesting experi ments, and made some diseoveries. Iris most important work in acoustics. perhaps, was the determination of the law connecting the pitch of a sound with the duration of the residual sensation in the ear. To Professor Mayer is also due a method of determining the comparative intensity of sounds with the same pile's and the location of the organs of hearing in the mosquito.
He developed new methods for analyzing sound, and he made researches into the nature of elec tricity. besides being the first to give necorately the temperature correction for tuning-forks. An early paper on the Thermodynamics of Water fall:: (1869) aroused considerable interest, and one on the variation of the elasticity of metals with change of temperature showed the delicacy of Professor layer's experimental work. Ilis last important research was an experimental in vestigation of the equilibrium of the forces act ing in the flotation of disks and rings of metal and their amdieation to measure surface tension. In addition to his scientific attainment-, Professor Mayer was an enthusiastic sportsman and wrote ,'port with Gun. and Rod in. A incrican Woods and It a ters 11S83 . Consult short biographical sketch in August 20, 1s97. by W. LeConte Ste ens. Besides many contributions to scientific journals and encyclopedias, l'rofessor .Mayer was the author of Lecture _Votes on PhysieA (1868); The Earth a Great Magm t (IS7:2) ; Light, with Charles Barnard (IS77) ; and Sound