Hunt, THOMAS STERRY

Hunt, THOMAS STERRY, an American chemist and geologist, born at Norwich, Connecticut, 5th September 1826, was assistant to the elder Silliman at Yale College, and from 1847 to 1872 chemist and mineralogist to the Canadian Geological Survey. He was also professor of Chemistry at Laval University (1856–62) and at McGill University (1862–68); from 1872 to 1878 he held the chair of Geology in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1848–51 he contributed a series of papers on theoretical chemistry to the American Journal of Science; in organic chemistry his name is identified with a system essentially his own. His researches into the composition of rocks were of great importance. In 1859 he invented the green ink with which Greenbacks (q.v.) are printed. He was made an officer of the Legion of Honour in 1867, and became an F.R.S. (1859), and LL.D. of Cambridge (1881), and received many other distinctions. At his death, 12th February 1892, he had published over 200 papers and several larger works on chemistry and mineralogy.