154 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
than 200 columns. His astronomical calculations also fill 
many pages of the Washington Observations. One of his last 
researches related to the magnetism of iron ships, a subject which 
a committee of the Academy afterwards investigated at the re- 
quest of the Navy Department. 
Hubbard was present at the meeting in New York at which 
the Academy was organized and welcomed its inauguration 
in his enthusiastic manner as “ the most important epoch ever 
witnessed by science in America.” He was not destined, how- 
ever, to contribute to its developments as he died a few months 
later, his demise having been hastened, as some have believed, 
by the unhealthy surroundings of the old Naval Observatory at 
Washington in which he labored. 
(From B. A. GouLp, in Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of 
Sciences, vol. 1, 1877, pp. 1-34.) 
ANDREW ATKINSON HUMPHREYS 
Born, November 2, 1810; died, December 27, 1883 
Andrew Atkinson Humphreys was of Welsh ancestry. He 
came from a family of naval constructors—his grandfather hay- 
ing been the architect of the Constitution, and her five sister frig- 
ates. After his graduation from the U. S. Military Academy at 
West Point, Lieutenant Humphreys was assigned to the Second 
Artillery, and served in the South, taking an active part in the 
Florida War. Resigning his commission on account of impaired 
health, he served for two years as a civil engineer under Major 
Hartman Bache. On July 8, 1838, he became assistant in the 
Bureau of Topographical Engineers at Washington. While in 
this position he prepared the first project for the extension of the 
National Capitol. In 1844 he was detailed as assistant in charge 
of the Coast Survey Office. After eighteen years of work in his 
profession he entered upon the great labors of original research 
and administrative direction, which have made his name illustri- 
ous. The Government having turned its attention to the ques- 
tion of reclaiming the lands along the Mississippi subject to 
inundation, and subsequently making two appropriations of 
