(This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before ...)
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
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Desmond Fitzgerald was born at Nassau, Bahama Islands, the son of Lionel Charles William Henry and Sarah Caroline (Brown) Fitzgerald.
His father, a captain in the British army, was bora in Turlough Park in northwestern Ireland. His mother, born at Nassau, was a daughter of Patrick Brown, president of His Majesty’s Council, and Desmond through her was closely related to one of the best-known families of Rhode Island.
The family moved to Providence, Rhode Island, when Desmond was a child, and there he received his early education. At twelve he spent a year in Paris studying art, with the idea of becoming a sculptor.
He then entered Phillips Academy at Andover, Massachusetts, graduating in 1864.
While still under age he became deputy secretary of Rhode Island and later private secretary to General Burnside, the governor of the state, and during this period he began to study engineering in the office of a firm in Providence. His first engineering work, in the Middle West, led to his appointment some six years later as chief engineer of the Boston & Albany Railroad (1871 - 73). He had already begun to display the characteristics of energy and thoroughness which marked his entire career. In 1870, he married Elizabeth Parker Clark Salisbury of Brookline, Massachusetts. In 1873 Fitzgerald began his career as a hydraulic engineer by becoming superintendent of the western division of the Boston water works. Here most of his pioneer work was done in connection with the sanitary protection of water supplies, the improvement of reservoirs, and the study of alga and bacteria in drinking water.
Due largely to his efforts a suit was brought by the city to prevent the pollution of one of the reservoirs, which was won after seven years’ litigation in the courts of the state.
Fitzgerald made a long series of experiments at the Chestnut Hill reservoir upon the subject of evaporation from water area which for the first time afforded a fundamental basis and formula for the study of the subject. His paper on “Evaporation” (Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, September 1886), as well as that on “Rainfall, Flow of Streams and Storage” (Ibid. , September 1892) received the Norman Medal of the American Society of Civil Engineers, of which he was a member for many years, and president in 1899.
When the metropolitan water board absorbed the Boston supply works in 1898, he continued in charge of operation until his resignation in 1903. He later continued for some years in consulting practise, and was connected with many projects of importance, including the Chicago drainage canal, and the water supplies of Washington, San Francisco, and Manila. He was also one of the experts of the Metropolitan Sewerage Commission of New York City.
Soon after his return to Boston in 1871 he became a collector. In 1913 he erected in Brookline his art gallery, an attractive brick building near his house, which became a center of interest in paintings, and Korean and Chinese pottery and porcelains.
His gallery was open daily and was a gathering place on Sunday afternoons for his family and friends. Here he will perhaps be best remembered, easy and calm in manner, interesting and illuminating in conversation, and always kindly.
He designed and constructed some of the largest and most important storage reservoirs built by the city of Boston during these years. He was a pioneer in the study of color in water and of methods of reducing it by swamp drainage, as w'cll as of the effect of sunlight in bleaching stored water. He was the first to establish a biological laboratory in connection with water supply.
(This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before ...)
He was a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
In 1870, he married Elizabeth Parker Clark Salisbury of Brookline, Massachusetts.
