THE INCORPORATORS 149 
In 1846 Henry resigned from Princeton and became the first 
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, then just established. 
The following year he presented his plan of organization and 
from that time until his death in 1878, a period of 31 years, 
he devoted all his energies to its practical development, whereby 
he gained an unique position among American men of science 
and made the Smithsonian Institution better known throughout 
the world than any other American institution. “ His original 
investigations during his thirty years at the Smithsonian Institu- 
tion,” remarks Dr. Goode, ‘were not of great extent; but his 
influence, not only upon the development of scientific work in 
the United States, but upon its character, cannot be overestimated. 
His official position brought him into constant contact, either 
personally or by letter, with all in the United States who were 
engaged in scientific work, and the inspiration and direct control 
which he exercised were constant and far-reaching.” Such 
researches and studies as he undertook had their origin chiefly 
in problems encountered or brought to his attention in the course 
of his administrative work. They related to a great variety of 
subjects—acoustics, meteorology, education, the phenomena of 
physical and organic forces, evolution, the qualities of building 
materials and of illuminating oils, etc. 
In 1852 he was appointed by President Fillmore a member of 
the Lighthouse Board. Early in the Civil War he, with Pro- 
fessor Bache and Admiral Davis, was appointed by the Secretary 
of the Navy on the commission to investigate various practical 
questions connected with the operations of the Navy. It was the 
work of this commission that appears to have suggested the 
organization of the National Academy of Sciences in the form 
which it finally assumed. Henry, according to his own utter- 
ances, did not take part in its organization but he was one of the 
charter members and the chairman of the first committee of the 
Academy, that on weights, measures and coinage. In 1866 he 
was elected Vice-President, and in 1868 became President, his 
term of office extending over eleven years. 
(From Stmon Newcoms, in Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy 
of Sciences, vol. 5, 1905, pp. 1-45, and G. Brown Goong, in “ The Smithsonian 
