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Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/504

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462
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ends. After recovering he returned to England, then visited Spain, and after marrying in England he came to the United States in 1830. He immediately engaged in business and after thirty years of successful ventures he retired on a handsome fortune. The fifteen years following this he spent in traveling over Europe and America, and in 1875 settled on "Brambletye Farm" at Setauket, Long Island, where he led a quiet, retired life. For more than thirty years Mr, Hodgkins made a special study of the atmosphere in its relation to the well-being of humanity. Thomas George Hodgkins. He believed that this study was important, not only with reference to man's physical health, but even in relation to his moral and spiritual nature, and he hoped that the concentration of thought upon the atmosphere and its study from every point of view would in time lead to results which would justify his almost devout interest in the subject.

Mr. Hodgkins had no family and no known blood relations, and, recognizing the difficulties which often arise over the settlement of large estates, he chose to be his own executor; he therefore gave away his entire wealth to various public institutions; these gifts included large sums to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and the similarly named society for protecting animals; and one hundred thousand dollars to the Royal Institution of Great Britain.

Since writing the foregoing pages, the Committee of Award for the Hodgkins Prizes has completed its examination of the papers submitted in competition. These papers were two hundred and eighteen in number, and were sent from almost every quarter of the globe. The committee consisted of Prof. S. P. Langley, ex officio, Prof. G. Brown Goode, Dr. John S. Billings, Prof. M. W. Harrington, together with a foreign Advisory Committee, composed of the late Prof. T. H. Huxley, M. J. Jansen, and Prof. Wilhelm von Bezold.

On August 6, 1895, the committee announced the following awards: