234 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 



leading army hospitals. Dr. Elliott Coues, 2 a Washington 

 boy, was just beginning an enthusiastic ornithological 

 career, and F. B. Meek, 3 the eminent paleontologist, was 

 there busy with his fossils, his deafness excluding him from 

 society or the army. 



Even the perils of the time were not without occasional 

 gleams of the comic, as when Professor Henry was accused 

 by a patriotic citizen of permitting signals from the 

 Smithsonian towers to the enemy across the Potomac. 

 This turned out to be the lanterns of students climbing 

 the long flights of steps to their bedrooms high up in the 

 towers. 



In January, 1865, a workman seeking a chimney for 

 a stovepipe in an upper room by mistake inserted it in 

 a hollow panel in the wall leading up to the wooden 

 timbers of the roof. When a fire was kindled burning 

 bits of paper were carried up, and on January 24th a 

 conflagration resulted, which destroyed the upper story 

 of the building, together with most of the records and 

 files of correspondence of the Institution, apparatus for 

 physical research, and much else. 



Professor Henry had invariably replied to all his 

 correspondents with extreme courtesy, no matter how 

 absurd the proposition advanced or question asked. 

 When the inventor of a scheme for perpetual motion sent 



2 Elliott Coues, M.D., born in Portsmouth, N. H., Sept. 9, 1842; 

 died Dec. 25, 1899. One of the most brilliant American students of 

 birds and mammals; serving in the earlier years as army surgeon and 

 explorer; later notable for his editions of Lewis and Clarke's travels 

 and those of other early explorers. 



3 Fielding Bradford Meek, born at Madison, Indiana, Dec. 10, 

 1817; died at Washington, Dec. 21, 1876. Largely self-taught, he 

 became one of our most distinguished paleontologists and contributed 

 especially to our knowledge of the fossils of Illinois and Missouri. 



