H. Foster Bain died in Manila, on 9th March, 1948, at the age of 76.
He graduated at Moore’s Hill College, Indiana, U.S.A., in 1890, and from 1891 to 1893 was a graduate student in geology and chemistry at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.
He entered the Iowa Geological Survey in 1893 and a year later was appointed assistant State geologist. From1896 to 1897 he attended the University of Chicago and took the degree of Ph.D in June, 1897. He then resumed his position at the Iowa Geological Survey and was also lecturer on economic geology at the Iowa, and Chicago Universities.
In 1900 he became president and manager of Dubuque Ore Concentrating Co., and was later engaged in mine examination in Colorado, and for six months studied the zinc fields of Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas and Oklahoma for the U.S. Geological Survey.
During 1901 he took up the post of foreman, and later assistant superintendent, at the Franklin mine, Idaho Springs. He became manager of Consolidated Franklin Mines Co. in 1902, and also assistant manager of Cripple Creek Mining Co., Colorado. In the following year he joined the U.S. Geological Survey as geologist, and remained in that position until 1905, when he was appointed Director of the State Geological Survey of Illinois.
Mr. Bain had been associate editor in New York of the Mining Magazine from 1904 to 1905, and in April, 1909, took over the editorship of Mining and Scientific Press at San Francisco. After six years he came to London as editor of the Mining Magazine, holding this position from 1915 to 1917, during which time he assisted Herbert Hoover on the Commission for the Relief of Belgium.
After exploration work in various countries he became in 1921 Director of the United States Bureau of Mines, and in 1925 Secretary of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers. He resigned in 1931 and travelled extensively, subsequently holding the appointment of consultant and technical adviser to the Philippines Bureau of Mines from 1936 to 1942.
He was interned for two years in the Japanese prison camp at Santo Tomas University in Manila, but returned to America in 1941 and resumed his profession.
Mr. Bain was elected to Membership of the Institution in 1915.
Vol. 58, Trans I.M.M. 1948-49, p. 583
