The Book of Job: With Notes, Critical, Explanatory and Practical
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A Textbook of Botany for Colleges and Universities; Volume 1, PT 2
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Henry Chandler Cowles was an American botanist and geographer.
Background
Henry Chandler Cowles was born on February 27, 1869 in Kensington, Connecticut, United States. He was the older of two sons of Henry Martyn Cowles, a farmer, and Eliza (Whittlesey) Cowles. He was a direct descendant of John Cowles, who came to Massachusetts from England about 1634, moving a few years later to Connecticut, where the family remained as farmers thereafter.
Education
After graduating from the high school in New Britain, Connecticut, Cowles attended Oberlin College, receiving his A. B. in 1893. His entire professional life was spent at the University of Chicago. Cowles began in geology but later transferred to botany. He received his Ph. D. in 1898.
Career
Cowles’s dissertation dealt with the vegetation of sand dunes along the southern shores of Lake Michigan. There Cowles encountered a series of plant communities that he interpreted as a historical record of changes in vegetation, starting with a few hardy plants growing on unstable dunes and culminating in a climax community (that is, a mature, balanced biological community whose composition changes little over time) of deciduous forest growing on ancient dunes. Cowles described this process of plant succession as analogous to the development of an organism from embryo to adult, though he also emphasized that shifting environmental variables (such as dune slope, wind speed and direction, moisture, and soil chemistry) often disrupted this developmental pattern. Thus, in an idealized scheme, the evolution of the plant community would increase the stability of the sand dune. In reality, however, the dune often broke loose, destroying the finely tuned symbiosis between plants and soil. Cowles’s dissertation, published in 1899 as an extended article in the Botanical Gazette (an important journal founded by his teacher John Coulter), became a classic study of plant succession. The work did much to establish “dynamic ecology” as the central focus of American plant ecology during the first half of the 20th century. Cowles’s physiographic approach explained the development and distribution of local plant communities in terms of topography, moisture, wind, erosion, sedimentation, and other geological processes. His 1901 article in the Botanical Gazette on the physiographic ecology of the area surrounding Chicago solidified his reputation as a leading figure in plant ecology.
After completing a Ph. D. in 1898, Cowles joined the faculty of the botany department at the University of Chicago; he spent the rest of his career there and retired in 1934. During this period he also became editor of the Botanical Gazette and played a leading role in establishing the University of Chicago as a major centre of ecological research during the early decades of the 20th century. His early study of the Lake Michigan dunes served as a seminal model for later students who continued to study the ecological relations of plants and animals at the site. Many of his students became influential American ecologists in their own right, including the plant ecologists William S. Cooper and Arthur Vestal, the zoologist and animal ecologist Victor Shelford, and the conservationist Paul Sears. Cowles and his students were instrumental in founding the Ecological Society of America in 1915, with Cowles serving as president in 1918. Cowles served as president of the Association of American Geographers in 1910, as vice president and chairman of the botanical section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1913, and as president of the Botanical Society of America in 1922.
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Membership
He was a member of the Ecological Society of America (1918).
The British Ecological Society awarded him an honorary life membership in 1934 "in recognition of the extreme value of his pioneer work in Ecology. "
Personality
Along with a ready wit and friendliness, Cowles combined acute powers of observation, sound judgment, and clarity of expression with a thorough grounding in biology and geology.
Connections
He was survived by his wife, formerly Elizabeth L. Waller of Louisville, whom he had married on June 25, 1900, and by their daughter, Harriet Elizabeth Cowles.