"A hale looking scholar with an authoritative manner," wrote Robert van Gelder in the New York Times. "There goes the most objectionable type of Harvard man," fumed an irate New England matriarch. Quoth the editors of Time: "a Boston Brahmin with a bite."

To those who know him best Sam Morison's bark is worse than his bite. At the age of fifty-four, the scholar with an almost forbidding air of formality has mellowed into an affable squire with a Pickwickian sense of humor. Though his main interests are still U. S. History before 1860 and Christopher Columbus, to hear him talk one would think that life consisted solely of sailing, horseback riding, and the tinkle of slender glasses filled with wine. Back in 1917 Professor Morison talked differently. The call to arms saw him enlist as a private, and though he never got beyond Camp Devens, the Army furnished him with at least one good war story. He recalls with a grin a fellow New Englander who could never resist a playful jab at the soldier-scholar. "We have two Ha-ava-ad men here," he'd say, "one from Ha-ava-ad College and one from Ha-ava-ad Brewery."

In March of this year, barely four months after the outbreak of the Second World War, Professor Morison, his reputation as a leading historian firmly established by texts such as the classic "Maritime History of Massachusetts," published the greatest work of his career. From the tumultuous reception accorded it by critics and public alike, the monumental "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" promises to remain for all posterity the classic biography of Columbus. At all events, it justifies the inscription on one of the Professor's most cherished possessions--a photograph of Franklin Roosevelt which he autographed "To my friend Sam Morison--Columbus Junior."

The birth of Columbus Junior goes back to the summer of 1916, when at the age of 29, he was given charge of History 10. Though that course was intended to cover from the time of the Vikings to 1770, and he had meant to prepare his lectures during the summer months, the opening of the College year found the Professor no further than the voyages of Columbus. Says he, "I kept just ahead of the class that year." From that time on the brainchild grew steadily. After a trip to Lisbon had established conclusively that Portuguese claims to prior discovery of the Americas had no basis in fact, Columbus' biographer set to work. "My profession is history; my avocation is sailing. I combined them." On more than four occasions since 1937, and with kindred spirits of the Harvard Columbus Expedition, Morison went forth upon the ocean in the wake of his hero, the Admiral. He returned with a tale, stranger than any fiction, and as salty as the sea.

Right now, in order, as he puts is, "to help cut the budget at Cambridge," Professor Morison is giving students at Johns Hopkins the benefit of his wisdom. But up in Widener 417, books, maps, charts and pictures about the discovery, leave no doubt as to his eventual return. A lifetime of service and association with the University gives John Harvard more than a right to claim Columbus Junior for his own.