ABSTRACT
This chapter will take you on a journey through Europe during the years 1875 and 1876. Our traveller is the American civil engineer and instructor of physics at Rensselaer Polytechnic, Henry A. Rowland. He was sent (and accompanied for part of the journey) by the President of Johns Hopkins University, Daniel Coit Gilman, with the aim of studying the material culture of science in Europe. In particular he was to survey workmanship in laboratory physics, the quality of instrument making and the most important research topics pursued by European physicists. Equipped with substantial funds and looking forward to becoming the founding director of the new physics laboratory at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, the 27-year-old physicist expected to do his most interesting and challenging fieldwork. Historians of science have paid little attention to this European trip, let alone to integrate Rowland's experiences as a traveller with an understanding of his early laboratory physics at Johns Hopkins. 1
