OF ARTS AND SCIENCES : MAY 28, 1867. 305 



always insisted upon seeing with his own eyes, and was not overmuch 

 indined to reverence authority, or rely on commonly received state- 

 ments. ' Not only were his own personal services very considerable in 

 the exploring of regions ditficult of access, or in the investigation of 

 facts difficult to observe ; but when, as of late years, he could command 

 the means, these were liberally given in aid of other explorers in his 

 favorite fields. 



At the outbreak of the Eebellion he went at once to Washington 

 and oiFered his services to the government. Commissioned as assistant 

 surgeon in the regular army, without waiting for a position he accepted 

 that of surgeon in the Twentieth Regiment of Massachusetts Volun- 

 teers in July, 1861, and was made brigade surgeon in the following 

 September, but remained with his regiment until after the disaster of 

 Ball's Bluif in October. Afterwards he served on the staffs of Generals 

 Lander and Shields, until he was oi'dered to Washington to take charge 

 of the Lincoln Plospital, — one of the first large hospitals established, 

 while the medical department of the army was as yet imperfectly organ- 

 ized, so that the whole responsibility for plan and execution came mostly 

 upon the surgeon in charge. In this position Dr. Bryant's remarkable 

 talent for administration was conspicuous ; and his hospital, was pro- 

 nounced, by professional men, to be admirable. His failing health 

 obliged him to resign his commission before the close of the war. Af- 

 terwards he went abroad with his family ; and in France he bought 

 and presented to the Boston Society of Natural History the La Fres- 

 naye collection of birds, comprising nearly nine thousand specimens, 

 and probably unequalled in types of American species by any cabinet 

 in Europe. Returning home late in the year 1866, he sailed for the 

 West Indies, as winter drew on, intending thence to rejoin his family 

 in France, and in spring to return home with them. Landing at 

 Porto Rico, he was seized, on the 30th of January, with a severe ill- 

 ness, of uncertain character, but rode with great suffering twenty-five 

 miles to Araceibo, where, the next day, he closed — for us, far too 

 soon — a life of rare excellence and promise. 



Rev. Dr. William Jenks, — the most venerable of our late de- 

 parted associates, — died in Boston on the 13th of November last, 

 in the eighty-eighth year of his age. He was born at Newton, Massa- 

 chusetts, November 25, 1778, and was the son of Captain Samuel and 

 Mary (Haynes) Jenks. His parents having removed to Boston in his 

 early childhood, he received a classical education in the Latin School, 



VOL. VII. 39 



