THE INCORPORATORS 197 
signal service between Cambridge and Boston. In 1874 he was 
appointed by the Secretary of the Navy chairman of a commis- 
sion established by Congress for the purpose of investigating the 
causes of the explosions of steam boilers and formulated plans 
for experiments which should test the truth or falsity of the 
accepted theories, but he was not destined to see them carried 
into execution. He died suddenly at Cambridge, Massachusetts, 
on June 11, 1875. 
(From JosEPH LovERING, in Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy 
of Sciences, vol. 1, 1877, pp. 329-343.) 
JEFFRIES WYMAN 
Born, August 11, 1814; died, September 4, 1874 
Jeffries Wyman, the third son of Dr. Rufus Wyman, was 
born on August 11, 1814, at Chelmsford, near Lowell, Mas- 
sachusetts. In 1818, his father moved to Somerville where he 
was one of the physicians at the McLean Asylum. The early 
schooling of Jeffries Wyman began in Charlestown, Massachu- 
setts, and later he was sent to the Academy at Chelmsford. He 
became interested in natural history when very young, and often 
searched for objects of interest along the Charles River, near his 
home. His talent for drawing also developed early, and he 
afterwards used it to great advantage in the lecture-room. He 
entered Harvard in 1829, was graduated in 1833, and the next 
year took up the study of medicine with Dr. John C. Dalton. 
He received his degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1837, and 
began his work in Boston by acting as demonstrator of anatomy 
under a well-known comparative anatomist, Dr. J. C. Warren. 
This occupation was not very lucrative, and was often a source 
of discouragement, but Wyman pursued his scientific studies in 
connection with his medical work, and never entirely gave them 
up. 
At about this time the Lowell Institute was founded, and John 
A. Lowell, who was then in charge of its affairs, offered Wyman 
