548 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



hundred miles. He unquestionably derived much, benefit in bis 

 studies from his intercourse with Audubon, which began in 1838, 

 He contributed many facts and specimens for the "History of 

 North American Quadrupeds " and the " Ornithological Biogra- 

 phy." Audubon gave him a considerable part of his collection of 

 birds. He had intended to accompany Audubon as his secretary 

 in his six months' expedition to the Yellowstone in 1840, but was 

 prevented by ill-health. 



He read medicine, and attended a winter course of lectures at 

 the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1842 ; but he never 

 formally completed the course, and the degree which he received 

 in 1848 from the Philadelphia Medical College was an honorary 

 one. In 1845 he was made Professor of Natural History in Dickin- 

 son College, to which chair Chemistry was afterward added. In 

 this position — teaching the seniors in physiology, the sophomores 

 in geometry, and the freshmen in zoology — he also found time to 

 keep up his scientific researches, and to make long collecting ex- 

 peditions to the Adirondacks in 1847 ; to Ohio in 1848, for the col- 

 lection of types of the fishes of the State ; to the mountains of 

 Virginia in 1849 ; and to Lake Cham plain and Lake Ontario in 

 1850. " In his own collections during this period," says the author 

 of a tribute in " The Nation," " were develox^ed those business-like 

 methods of arrangement and detail for facilitating study which 

 were subsequently adopted and extended, not only in the institu- 

 tions which grew up under his supervision, but by nearly all other 

 American scientific museums, and which form a system that for 

 usefulness and efficiency has no parallel in any foreign museum 

 up to the present moment." 



In 1850 Prof. Baird was appointed, ujjon the recommendation 

 of the Hon. George P. Marsh, assistant secretary of the Smithso- 

 nian Institution. In this position he was brought into immediate 

 relations with Prof. Henry, under whose inspiration the institu- 

 tion was just getting fully under way. It was the ambition of that 

 chief to make the influence of the institution diffusive rather than 

 concentrative. It was to be the depository of all the collections 

 which should come into the hands of the Government. Prof. 

 Henry would not have it to monopolize these collections or be so 

 managed that only those might enjoy the advantages to be derived 

 from their study who should be immediately connected with it ; 

 but he considered that, while in the study of the specimens and the 

 publication and dissemination of the results it might properly 

 join forces with the Government and with private persons, its 

 part of the labor and expense should be as purely supplementary 

 to other agencies as circumstances might permit. " The policy of 

 the institution under Henry was to disperse as widely and freely 

 as possible the worked-up material, and to enlist in the process of 



