Philip Rounseville Alger naval officer was born in Boston Mass Sept 29 1859 son of William Rounseville and Anne Langdon Lodge Alger His first American ancestor was Thomas Alger who came from England and settled at Taunton Mass about 1665 his wife was Elizabeth Packard of Bridgewater and the line of descent is traced through their son Israel who married Patience Hayward their son Israel who married Susanna Snow their son James who married Martha Kingman their son James who married Hannah Bassett and their son Nahum who married Catharine Rounseville and was the grandfather of the subject of this sketch His father William Rounseville Alger qv was a distinguished clergyman of the Unitarian Church and a writer of much force and remarkable spirituality Philip Rounseville Alger was at the Boston Latin School where he was graduated in 1876 He entered the US Naval Academy in the same year and was graduated four years later at the head of his His first cruise on the Richmond took to the Pacific station and to China Returning in 1882 he was ordered to the bureau of ordnance Washington DC where he entered thus in his career upon a path in which he was win such marked distinction in later years By what seems a remarkable coincidence in view his extraordinary fitness to meet the demands the situation his entrance upon ordnance duty exactly with the beginning of the new of steel ships and built up guns Coming a cruise in a wooden corvette of the civil period he was called upon at once to bear a in the design of guns built up of tempered for ships as strikingly in contrast with the as were these guns with the cast iron muzzle loading smoothbores with which that ship fought her way past the batteries at New and Mobile Bay The new ships were the Boston and Dolphin cruisers it is true insignificant to day but up to date in their when designed and more heavily armed than other ships of that day which could properly compared with them and so far as ordnance concerned more nearly allied to the battleship of to day than to the wooden frigates and which had preceded them A second of duty afloat this time in the Pensacola on European station during 1885 88 was followed by another assignment to the bureau of and a year later November 1890 transfer to the corps of prolessore of mathematics With his tenure of duty on snore assured Alger entered now upon a new phase of his and for more than nine years was associated intimately so far as ordnance was concerned with every step of the remarkable advance in that brief period carried warship design the United States from the Chicago and Boston to the Maine and the Missouri In 1899 Alger left the bureau of ordnance under to take up the duties of head of the of mechanics at the US Naval Academy 1903 he was induced to accept the position secretary and treasurer of the Naval Annapolis Md a position which carried with the editorship of the institute's Proceedings and the following year he resumed his with the bureau of ordnance by becoming a of the special board on naval ordnance board created in 1904 was designed to act as advisory board to the bureau in connection with experimental work in the and test of ordnance material In spite of connection with the US Naval Institute with the special board he continued his at the Naval Academy until 1907 when the of mechanics was merged into that mathematics and thereafter until his death was enabled to give his uninterrupted to the institute and the special board The of the development of naval ordnance in United States during the last quarter century a history of the work of Prof Alger more of any other one man He wrote much on connected with ordnance and two of books Exterior Ballistics 1904 and Elastic Strength of Guns 1906 have been recognized as standard works upon the with which they deal Another book Hydromechanics 1902 was prepared by for use at the Naval Academy and been a gratifying success as a text book at institutions He had planned and partly a treatise on Interior Ballistics would have been the crowning work of his The subject had attracted him for many and had so far taken shape that he hoped to it rapidly to completion He was also the of numerous articles on technical subjects ordnance and translated War on the Sea Capt Gabriel Darrieus of the French 1908 He belonged to the Metropolitan Army and Navy clubs He was married Apr 1891 to Louisa daughter of Col JH Taylor the US army Their children are Mary married Roy C Smith Jr US navy Philip Langdon Montgomery Meigs Louisa gers and Catherine Rounseville Prof Alger at Annapolis Md Feb 23 1912.

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