740 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS. 



Baird was an organizer of the agencies of research. When a bold 

 explorer essayed to penetrate the seas of ice by the path of peril and 

 in qnest of fame, Baird would ever so manage that a corps of quiet 

 scholars should be attached to the expedition to study the climate of 

 the Arctic zone, the geology of the Arctic rocks, the flora of the Arctic 

 lands, or the fauna of the Arctic fields ; and the best knowledge we 

 have of the igloo-dwellers, the Eskimo whose home is on the ice of the 

 North, has been brought to us by the quiet students he succeeded in 

 attaching to Arctic exploring expeditions, and so the love of glory 

 was made to serve the cause of truth. 



When, in the interests of international commerce, expeditions were 

 sent to explore and survey routes of travel and transportation across 

 Central America from sea to sea, he managed to send with them corps 

 of scientific men whose function it was to bring from the tropics all 

 forms of its abundant life, vegetal and animal, and the relics of the 

 arts of the people of Central America as they are exhibited in stone 

 and clay and gold ; and the National Museum has been enriched by 

 the results of this labor, and the boundaries of human knowledge 

 extended thereby, and so the greed of gain was made to serve the 

 love of truth. 



When our Army was distributed on the frontiers of the land, he every- 

 where enlisted our scholarly officers in the service of science and he 

 transformed the military post into a station of research ; the Indian 

 campaign into a scientific expedition. Scott, Marcy, McClellau, 

 Thomas, and many other of the great generals of America were stu- 

 dents of natural history and collectors for Baird. When our Navy 

 cruised around our shores its officers were inspired with that love of 

 nature which made every voyage of military duty a voyage of discov- 

 ery in the realms of natural science ; when they journeyed among the 

 islands of the sea they brought back stores of scientific materials, and 

 when they sailed through the littoral waters of other continents they 

 made voyages of scientific investigation. Many of these earlier 

 naturalists of the Navy in subsequent times became commodores and 

 admirals. 



But time would fail me to tell of the exploring expeditions and the 

 railroad surveys throughout America, and the travels throughout the 

 world, which he utilized in the interest of science, or of which he was 

 the immediate projector. Of the abundant material thus gathered from 

 all parts of the world, some has gone to enrich American institutions 

 of learning, and some has been gathered into the National Museum, — 

 an outgrowth of Baird's organizing genius and a splendid monument 

 to his memory. 



The hills of the land stretch not so far as the billows of the sea ; 

 the heights of the mountains are not so great as the depths of the 

 ocean ; and so the world was unknown until this greater region was 

 explored. The treasures of the land did not satisfy the desires of 



