48 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
best interests of the Academy. How zealously he guarded its good name; how 
impartially and wisely he guided its deliberations; and how earnestly he strove 
to maintain for it a high standard in Science, we can all bear ample testimony.” 27 
Shortly before his death, in 1878, a number of personal friends 
established a fund “as an expression of the donors’ respect and 
esteem for Professor Joseph Henry’s personal virtues, their 
sense of his life’s great devotion to science with its results of im- 
portant discoveries, and of his constant labors to increase and 
diffuse knowledge and promote the welfare of mankind.” This 
fund, which amounted to $40,000, was deposited with a trust 
company, with the provision that the income derived from it 
should be paid over to Professor Henry during his lifetime, and 
afterward to his wife and daughters; and that after the death 
of the last survivor it should be delivered to the Academy “ to 
be thenceforward forever held in trust under the name and title of 
the ‘ Joseph Henry Fund,’ the principal to be forever held intact, 
and the income to be from time to time applied by the said 
National Academy of Sciences in its sole discretion to assist 
meritorious investigators, especially in the direction of original 
research.” 
On June 30, 1878, Congress passed an act requiring the 
Academy to consider the methods and expenditures of the 
several surveys carried on under Government auspices, and to 
report a plan for conducting them to the best advantage as re- 
gards cost and results, and for the publication and distribution 
of reports, maps, etc. The views of the Academy on this sub- 
ject, which was one of much importance, will be considered in 
the chapter devoted to the work of the Academy as the scientific 
adviser of the Government. 
After the death of Professor Henry, the Vice-President, 
Professor Marsh, was Acting President until April, 1879, when 
Professor Wm. B. Rogers was elected President. The term of 
office under the constitution was six years, but Professor Rogers 
died in May, 1882, and Professor Marsh again became Acting 
President until April, 1883, when Professor Wolcott Gibbs 
* Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., vol. 1, p. 149. 
