[Wilbur Olin]. Chemist and scientific agriculturist, born at Johnsburgh, NY, on the 3rd of May 1844; graduated from Wesleyan University in 1865; and took Ph.D. at Yale in 1869, afterward studying chemistry in Germany. Since 1873 he has been professor of chemistry at his alma mater, and since 1888 also associated with the Central Bureau of Agricultural Stations at Washington, DC. His chief work has been in researches as to the nutritive and economic value of dietaries, on which he is one of the first living authorities. In these pursuits he devised a bombcalorimeter in which to inclose animals or men for the determination of “the laws of the conservation of matter and of energy in the living organism.” He has published numerous articles of a popular and scientific nature in the Century Magazine and other periodicals, relating to his food investigations, and he founded the Experiment Station Record.
