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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



to be made, because, until Prof. Henry's 

 electro-magnet was invented, it was an im- 

 possibility. Tins electro-magnetic telephone, 

 made by Prof. Henry in 1830, is the thing 

 in universal use to-day. It goes by the er- 

 roneous name of the ' Morse telegraph ; ' and 

 it will be in use till the end of time. The 

 thing was perfect as it came from the hand 

 of its author, and has never been improved 

 from that day to this as a sounding tele- 

 graph." 



Having immortalized himself by 

 these brilliant researches of the labo- 

 ratory, Prof. Henry was called into a 

 more conspicuous sphere of action as 

 the organizer and administrator of a 

 great public enterprise of national scope 

 in connection with the progress of sci- 

 ence. John Smithson, an English chem- 

 ist and physicist, and member of the 

 Royal Society, had left upward of half 

 a million dollars as a trust to the Amer- 

 ican Government, to be used for "the 

 increase and diffusion of knowledge 

 among men." How this language was 

 to be construed and how the money 

 was to be expended were open ques- 

 tions. The Washington politicians were 

 in favor of spending it on buildings, 

 libraries, and museums to be established 

 at the national capital, and the whole 

 fund would probably have been buried 

 and lost in this way, but for the in- 

 fluence of Prof. Henry. He was ap- 

 pointed, in 1846, as secretary and prin- 

 cipal executive officer of the Institution, 

 and at once applied all his energies to 

 rescue the fund from the misdirection 

 that had been given to it, and to devise 

 more efficient means of obtaining the 

 comprehensive object to which it was 

 devoted. As Smithson was a man of 

 science, and an original investigator of 

 that "natural knowledge " which the 

 Royal Society of Great Britain, of which 

 he was a fellow, was founded to pro- 

 mote, Prof. Henry fairly and justly as- 

 sumed that the intention of the donor 

 was the increase and diffusion of scien- 

 tific knowledge increase and augmen- 

 tation by research and organized sys- 

 tems of observation, and diffusion by 

 means of extended publication. Henry's 



policy, therefore, was to diminish ex- 

 penditures upon buildings, libraries, 

 museums, and art-galleries, that the 

 money might be devoted to wider and 

 more legitimate purposes. He took 

 the ground that the Institution ought 

 to do nothing which can be equally 

 well done by any organization or in- 

 strumentality already in action. He ac- 

 cordingly drew up a scheme of opera- 

 tions which provided for extensive re- 

 searches especially in the fields of eth- 

 nology and of meteorology. He had for 

 many years five hundred meteorological 

 observers scattered over the continent, 

 accumulating data designed to elucidate 

 the laws which govern the phenomena 

 of the weather. This branch of work, 

 begun on so thorough a scale by the 

 Smithsonian Institution, has developed 

 into the Signal Service and Weather 

 Bureau in Washington, now so impor- 

 tant to the agriculture and commerce 

 of the country. In the department of 

 publications the public has been fur- 

 nished with the " Smithsonian Con- 

 tributions to Knowledge," now consist- 

 ing of many large quarto volumes, all 

 valuable as positive additions to the 

 sum of existing knowledge. Besides 

 these, the Institution has put forth the 

 " Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collec- 

 tions," and " Annual Reports," all of 

 which are intrinsically valuable for the 

 information they contain, and are very 

 widely circulated through the country. 

 Prof. Henry's plan also comprehended 

 an extensive system of exchanges of 

 works, proceedings, and reports, be- 

 tween the literary and scientific asso- 

 ciations of the Old and New World. 

 All these features of Prof. Henry's 

 broad and liberal scheme of adminis- 

 tering the Smithsonian trust have been 

 carried out vigorously, and with a de- 

 gree of success that has commanded 

 universal approval. An administration 

 of thirty years has settled the policy of 

 the Institution, and will undoubtedly 

 shape its future, and it is very doubt- 

 ful if there was another man in the 

 United States that could have done 



