Edward Asahel Birge

Background

Edward Bailey Birge was born on September 7, 1851, in Troy, New York, the son of Edward White Birge, an English-born carpenter of limited means, and his wife Ann Stevens, of Troy, New York.

Education

After completing grammar school and high school in Troy, Birge attended Williams College from 1869 to 1873. There Mark Hopkins (philosophy), John Bascom (English literature), and Sanford Tenney (natural history) were his most influential teachers. Following Tenney’s advice, Birge next studied zoology under Louis Agassiz at the Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, during the fall of 1873.

In December 1873, Birge transferred to the Harvard Graduate School, where he studied under Louis Agassiz and was awarded a Ph.D. in zoology in 1878.

Career

In January 1876 Birge assumed the position of instructor in natural history and curator of the cabinet at the University of Wisconsin, at the behest of John Bascom, then president of that institution. In 1878 Birge returned briefly to Harvard for his doctoral examination and to receive his doctorate. He became a professor of biology at Wisconsin in 1879, and soon thereafter he spent the year 1880-1881 at the University of Leipzig in the postdoctoral study under the physiologist Ludwig and under Gaule, from whom he learned the newly devised paraffin sectioning technique, which he introduced to Wisconsin upon his return.

Birge spent the rest of his life at the University of Wisconsin, where he was a professor and chairman of zoology (1879-1911), dean of the College of Letters and Science (1891-1918), acting president (1900-1903), president (1918-1925), and president emeritus (1925-1950). In addition, he served the state of Wisconsin as commissioner of fisheries (1895-1915), director of the Geological and Natural History Survey (1879-1919), and member of the Conservation Commission (1908-1915).

At Wisconsin, Birge continued his undergraduate interest in water fleas by studying plankton crustaceans in Lake Mendota in relation to depth, light, temperature, and currents. This led him to the independent discovery of the thermocline (observed only shortly before in European lakes) and to a study of dissolved oxygen at different depths and times, its depletion by respiration of organisms, and its interchange with carbon dioxide at the water surface. Birge came to regard the lake as a kind of superorganism with the physiology of its own - respiring, metabolizing and exchanging matter and energy with its environment.

In 1900 Birge brought Chancey Juday to Wisconsin and, greatly assisted by him, in 1911 published a major monograph on the dissolved gases in lakes and their biological significance. From this time on, Birge turned his attention more toward the physical factors in lakes, especially heat distribution and light penetration, while Juday specialized in lake chemistry and biological productivity. Their collaboration continued, and most of their work was published jointly.

From a study of the Finger Lakes of New York in 1910 and comparable investigations in Wisconsin, Birge worked out the principle of the “heat budget” of lakes; he also studied the thermal exchange between lake water and air in considerable detail, including the very significant role of wind in the process. Impressed by the importance of sunlight in the heat budget and in productivity, Birge next began a detailed study of light penetration into inland lake waters. With the help of physicists, he devised an instrument, which he named the pyrlimnometer, that was in principle a delicate thermocouple capable of recording (as heat) light delivered by the sun to different lake depths. Later, equipped with filters, it was used to study separately the penetration of light of different wavelengths into the water.

Upon Birge’s retirement from the presidency of the University of Wisconsin, he and Juday established the Trout Lake Limnological Laboratory near Minocqua, in Vilas County, Wisconsin, a region of numerous lakes. Thus Birge was able to extend his studies of light penetration to many lakes with different intensities of water coloration. The results were published in a series of reports written with Juday and H. J. James between 1929 and 1933.

Birge showed that the upper meter of water absorbs nearly all the infrared and a large part of the ultraviolet light. The depth of penetration of the remaining rays was shown to depend on the amount of suspended matter (e.g., algae and sediment) and dissolved stains (e.g., humic acids from bogs). The amount and kind of organic matter was presented in a comprehensive report in 1922.

Achievements

• Birge's main achievement was in his work that led to the discovery of thermal layering in freshwater lakes, with warm water on top in the summer, underlain by a zone of rapidly changing temperature (now called a thermocline) and cold water on the bottom; in the winter, this pattern reversed. Birge recognized that understanding lakes required more than biological expertise, and he combed the University of Wisconsin to develop a team of chemists, physicists, and geologists to study Lake Mendota, which became the most researched lake in the world. And in so doing, he established the science of limnology.
  
  Birge was also a highly regarded and capable administrator. He rose through the ranks of university administration, twice serving as President of the University of Wisconsin. Along the way, he also was Wisconsin’s Fisheries Commissioner and the long-time director of the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey.
  
  Another Birge's achievement was in the establishment of the Trout Lake Limnological Laboratory near Minocqua, in Vilas County, Wisconsin, a region of numerous lakes.
  
  He received honorary degrees from Williams College; the universities of Pittsburgh, Wisconsin, and Missouri; and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
  
  In 1950 he shared the Einar Naumann Medal of the International Association of Limnology with his collaborator Chancey Juday.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Further Limnological Observations On The Finger Lakes Of New York

    (Issue 905)

    1921
  • The Inland Lakes of Wisconsin: The Dissolved Gases of the Water and Their Biological Significance

    (Issue 22)

    1923
  • The plankton; Its quantity and chemical composition 1922
  • Further Limnological Observations on the Finger Lakes of New York 1921
  • Memorial Service In Honor Of Charles Richard Van Hise At The University Of Wisconsin, Armory Hall 1919
  • Comparative Zoology, Structural and Systematic, for Use in Schools and Colleges 1893
  • Report upon the statements of Professor Robert McNutt McElroy and the Executive Committee of the National Security League relating to the University of Wisconsin 1918
  • The crustacea of the plankton 1894
  • Notes on Cladocera 1877
  • Gases dissolved in the waters of Wisconsin lakes 1910

Religion

Birge was a lifelong Congregationalist who had taught Bible classes for most of his professional life.

Membership

Birge was a member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia fraternity for men in music, initiated with Paul J. Weaver and Clarence C. Birchard in April 1924 at the national convention of MENC held in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was also a charter member of the Madison Literary and Town and Gown clubs, revealing an intellectual curiosity far beyond his academic specialty.

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• Leila Bascom, the daughter of a professor and administrator John Bascom, recalled Birge as "patient and understanding with any student who misunderstood or fumbled a bit... but woe to the bluffer, who was named such in no uncertain terms."

Connections

In 1879 Edward Asahel Birge married Anna Grant, a friend since childhood.

Father:

Edward White Birge

Mother:

Ann Stevens

collaborator:

Chancey Juday

Chancey Juday (5 May 1871 – 29 March 1944) together with G. Evelyn Hutchinson, and his close collaborator, Edward A. Birge were pioneers of North American limnology. Birge and Juday founded an influential school of limnology on Lake Mendota at the University of Wisconsin.

Wife:

Anna Grant

teacher:

Jean Agassiz

Friend:

George Clark Sellery

George Clarke Sellery (January 21, 1872 – January 21, 1962) was dean of the University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Letters and Science and acting president of the university for six months after Glenn Frank's ouster.

References

• Limnology in North America
  1966
• E.A. Birge, a memoir.
  1956
• Dictionary of scientific biography
  1981