CHASE, Pliny Earle, scientist, born in Worcester, Massachusetts, 18 August, 1820; died in Haverford, Pennsylvania, 17 December, 1886. He was graduated at Harvard in 1839, and for many years a teacher in Philadelphia, and later occupied in mercantile pursuits. In 1871 he became professor of philosophy and logic in Haverford College, near Philadelphia. Much of his time has been devoted to scientific research, and his investigations include: 1. The confirmation of Faraday's conjecture that gravity must be capable of an experimental relation to electricity, magnetism, and the other forces, so as to bind it up with them in reciprocal action and equivalent effect. For this investigation he received in 18(;4 the Magellanic gold medal of the American philosophical society. 2. Estimate of the Massachusetts and distance of the sun, from the influence upon the barometer of the constrained relative motions of the earth and sun. 3. The discovery that" V," which is the ratio between the electrostatic and electro-magnetic units, is also the time integral of stellar rotation, thus completing the demonstration of Faraday's conjecture. 4. Extension of planetary and stellar harmonies, so as to show that all the bodies of the solar system are so arranged as to indicate harmonic vibrations in an interstellar elastic medium. 5. Demonstration that the phyllotactic law, which Pierce, Hill, and Wright had extended to planetary cycles, is also operative in the vibrations of chemical a toms. 6. Application of the principle of conservation of areas to all cases of nebular condensation, so as tc show that the maximum gravitating acceleration at the centre of a stellar system is always determined by hminous undulation. 7. Connection of an error in regard to the density of the luminiferous ether. 8. Correction' of an error in regard to the elasticity of the luminiferous ether. 9. Demonstration of the Chase-Maxwell ratio. The results of these and other investigations have been contributed to the "Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society" and other scientific journals. and have also appeared in the transactions of the Royal society, French academy, and elsewhere. He is a member of scientific societies both in the United States and Europe, and has been vice-president of the American philosophical society. His published works include several arithmetics and "Elements of Meteorology" (Philadelphia, 1884).