Part 34

He believed that the money should be used in original scientific work; by helping men to publish the results of such work; to aid in varied explorations; to send scientific publications all over the world. The institution is now the principal agent of scientific and literary communication between the old world and the new. The number of foreign institutions and correspondents receiving the Smithsonian publications exceeds two thousand, scattered from New Zealand and India to Yokohama, in Japan, and Cape Town, in Southern Africa. The weight of matter sent abroad for ten years, ending 1877, was ninety-nine thousand pounds. Among the first subjects taken up by the institution for investigation was that of American archaeology, an attempt to ascertain the industrial, social, and intellectual character of the earliest races on our continent. The first publication of "Smithsonian Contributions" was a work on the mounds and earthworks found in the Mississippi valley, a most fascinating study.

The Smithsonian, "first in the world, organized a comprehensive system of telegraphic meteorology, and has thus given first to Europe and Asia, and now to the United States, that most beneficent national application of modern science--the storm warnings."

So much of value has been gathered by government surveys and by voluntary contribution that the institution has sent duplicates to various societies of specimens in geology, mineralogy, botany, zooelogy, and archaeology, while it has remaining, "boxed up, varieties of art and nature" more than enough to twice fill the halls and galleries of the building.

The work of Professor Henry grew more and more onerous, but he seemed to leave nothing undone. For many years he served gratuitously as chairman of the Lighthouse Board. When a substitute was needed for sperm oil, after almost numberless experiments, he showed that lard oil is the best illuminant, thereby saving the country over one hundred thousand dollars yearly, since 1865.

During the last twelve years of his life, he devoted much time to our system of coast fog-signals, making "contributions to the science of acoustics, unquestionably the most important of the century."

Observations were made, among other places, at Block Island and Point Judith. The distance between these fog-horns is seventeen miles, and the sound of one can be distinctly heard at the other when the air is quiet and homogeneous; but if the wind blows from one towards the other, the listener at the station from which the wind blows is unable to hear the other horn.

While at work in the Lighthouse Depot, in Staten Island, December, 1877, Henry's right hand became in a paralytic condition. This foretold that the end was near. He died at noon, May 13, 1878, asking, with his latest breath, which way the wind came, as though still thinking how to save human lives in a fog at sea. He was buried May 16, at Rock Creek Cemetery, near Georgetown, D. C. He was ready when death came. Two weeks before, he said to a friend: "I may die at any moment. I would like to live long enough to complete some things I have undertaken, but I am content to go. I have had a happy life, and I hope I have been able to do some good."

Several times during his connection with the Smithsonian Institution he was offered more lucrative positions, but he remained where he believed he could be most useful. He was called to the professorship of chemistry in the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania, with double the salary of his secretaryship; but he declined. He was urged also to take the presidency of the college at Princeton. John C. Calhoun desired him to accept a professorship in the University of Virginia, as there were so many difficulties in connection with the secretaryship. Henry declined, saying that "his honor was committed to the institution." Calhoun grasped his hand, exclaiming, "Professor Henry, you are a man after my own heart."

He seemed to have no time to accumulate money. Fortunately, a fund of forty thousand dollars has been raised by friends, the income of which goes to his family during life, and afterwards to the National Academy of Sciences, to be devoted to original research.

In character he was above reproach. He said, "I think that immorality and great mental power exercised in the discovery of scientific truths are incompatible with each other; and that more error is introduced from defect in moral sense than from want of intellectual capacity."

He loved nature. "A life devoted exclusively to the study of a single insect," he said, "is not spent in vain. No animal, however insignificant, is isolated; it forms a part of the great system of nature, and is governed by the same general laws which control the most prominent beings of the organic world." In 1870, when gazing upon the Aar glacier, from the Rhone valley, he exclaimed to his daughter, while the tears coursed down his cheeks: "This is a place to die in. We should go no further." A really great man is never afraid to show that he has a tender heart.

He loved his home. Out from it, in his early married life, two children went by death, and later, an only son in his early manhood. Three daughters were left him. One of them records in her diary: "Had father with us all the evening. I modelled his profile in clay, while he read 'Thomson's Seasons' to us. In the earlier part of the evening he seemed restless and depressed, but the influence of the poet drove away the cloud, and then an expression of almost childlike sweetness rested upon his lips, singularly in contrast, yet beautifully in harmony, with, the intellect of the brow above."

Again she writes: "We were all up until a late hour, reading poetry with father and mother, father being the reader. He attempted 'Cowper's Grave,' by Mrs. Browning, but was too tender-hearted to finish the reading of it. We then laughed over the 'Address to the Mummy,' soared to heaven with Shelley's 'Skylark,' roamed the forest with Bryant, culled flowers from other poetical fields, and ended with 'Tam O'Shanter.' I took for my task to recite a part of the latter from memory, while father corrected, as if he were 'playing schoolmaster.'"

He was orderly and painstaking in his work, deciding with great caution. Prof. Asa Gray tells a story of his boyhood which well illustrates this. "It goes back to the time when he was first allowed to have a pair of boots, and to choose for himself the style of them. He was living with his grandmother, in the country, and the village Crispin could offer no great choice of patterns; indeed, it was narrowed down to the alternative of round toes or square. Daily the boy visited the shop and pondered the alternatives, even while the manufacture was going on, until, at length, the shoemaker, who could brook no more delay, took the dilemma by both horns, and produced the most remarkable pair of boots the wearer ever had; one boot round-toed, the other square-toed.... He probably never again postponed decision till it was too late to choose."

A single incident illustrates the kindness of the man, who was always called the "model of a Christian gentleman." "Early in the war, in the autumn of 1861, a caller at the presidential mansion, very anxious to see the chief magistrate of the nation, was informed that he could not then be seen, being engaged in an important private consultation. The caller, not to be repulsed, wrote on a piece of paper that he must see Mr. Lincoln personally, on a matter of vital and pressing importance to the public welfare. This, of course, secured his admission to the presence of Mr. Lincoln, who was sitting with a middle-aged gentleman. Observing the hesitancy of the visitor, the President told him he might speak freely, as only a friend was present.

"Whereupon the visitor announced that for several evenings past he had observed a light exhibited on the highest of the Smithsonian towers, for a few minutes, about nine o'clock, with mysterious movements, which, he felt satisfied, were designed as signals to the rebels encamped on Munson's Hill, in Virginia. Having gravely listened to this information with raised eyebrows, but a subdued twinkle of the eye, the President turned to his companion, saying, 'What do you think of that, Professor Henry?'

"Rising with a smile, the person addressed replied that, from the time mentioned, he presumed the mysterious light shone from the lantern of an attendant who was required at nine o'clock each evening to observe and record the indications of the meteorological instruments placed on the tower. The painful confusion of the officious informant at once appealed to Henry's sensibility, and, quite unmindful of the President, he approached the visitor, offering his hand, and with a courteous regard counselled him never to be abashed at the issue of a conscientious discharge of duty, and never to let the fear of ridicule interfere with its faithful execution."

Henry had learned how to triumph over the misfortunes of life. In 1865, the Smithsonian building was partially burned, with nearly one hundred thousand letters, his notes of original research for thirty years, the annual report in manuscript, ready for the press, a valuable library, etc.

"A few years ago," he said, "such a calamity would have paralyzed me for future efforts, but in my present view of life I take it as the dispensation of a kind and wise Providence, and trust that it will work to my spiritual advantage."

A bronze statue of Joseph Henry, by W. W. Story, costing fifteen thousand dollars, was unveiled in the grounds of the Smithsonian Institution, April 19, 1883. Ten thousand people were assembled to witness the ceremonies. Noah Porter, ex-president of Yale College, delivered the oration. There it will tell the story of a self-made man--of whom Garfield said: "Remembering his great career as a man of science, as a man who served his government with singular ability and faithfulness, who was loved and venerated by every circle, who blessed with the light of his friendship the worthiest and the best, whose life added new lustre to the glory of the human race, we shall be most fortunate if ever in the future we see his like again."

Prof. Joseph Henry was succeeded by Prof. Spencer F. Baird as secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. He died August 19, 1887, and Prof. S. P. Langley was called to the position, accepting the office November 18, 1887. The mantle of Henry has fallen upon a worthy successor; a scholar who has given us, among other works, the "New Astronomy," whose beauty of diction, breadth of knowledge, and exquisite illustrations are so well remembered, as it appeared first in the pages of the Century Magazine.

LOUIS AGASSIZ.

In the midst of as beautiful scenery as one finds on earth, snow-white Alps, blue lakes, great fields of purple crocus, and picturesque homes, Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz was born at Motier, on Lake Morat, Switzerland, May 28, 1807.

His father, a clergyman, descended from a long line of clergymen, was a gentle but efficient man, universally esteemed. His mother, Rose Mayor, the daughter of a physician on the shore of Lake Neuchatel, was a woman of strong character and most tender affection. She had buried her first four children; therefore Louis was cared for with unusual solicitude.

Until he was ten years old, he was taught by his parents, and allowed to develop his natural tastes. Possibly his sweetness of disposition resulted, in part, from the wise training of the father and mother. Doubtless as many children are spoiled by undue thwarting and irritating as by over-indulgence. Though Louis met almost unsurmountable obstacles later in life, he was able to rejoice, having enjoyed a sunny childhood. Such a childhood we can give to our children but once.

In a great stone basin back of the parsonage, the boy made his first aquarium. There he gathered fishes, frogs, tadpoles, indeed, everything which he could obtain from Lake Morat. In the house he had pet birds, hares, rabbits, field-mice, with their families, all cared for as though they were royal visitors.

He was skilful as a carpenter and boot-maker. When the village cobbler came to the house, two or three times a year, to make shoes for the family, the lad was quick to imitate him, and made well fitting shoes for his sister's dolls.

Mrs. Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, in her fascinating life of her husband, tells this incident of his boyhood: "Though fond of quiet, indoor occupation, he was an active, daring boy. One winter day, when about seven years of age, he was skating with his little brother Auguste, two years younger than himself, and a number of other boys, near the shore of the lake. They were talking of a great fair held that day at the town of Morat, on the opposite side of the lake, to which M. Agassiz had gone in the morning, not crossing upon the ice, however, but driving around the shore.