* EEPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 33 



NEGEOLOGY. 



RANDALL LEE GIBSON. 



Randall Lee Gibson was born at Sirring Hill near Versailles, Ky., 

 September 10, 1832; was edncated in Lexington, Ky. ; in Terre Bonne 

 Parish, La.; at Yale College, and in tlie law department of the Tnlane 

 University of Lonisiaiui. Dnriiig the civil war he commanded a com- 

 pany, regiment, brigade, and division in the Confederate army. He was 

 a representative in the Forty-fonrtli, Forty-fifth, Forty-sixth, and Forty- 

 seventh Congress, and was elected to the Senate in 1883, and his sec- 

 ond term as Senator wonld have expired on March 3, 1895. 



Senator Gibson was appointed a Regent of the Smithsonian Institn- 

 tion December 19, 1887, and was reappointed March 28, 1889, filling the 

 office till his death, on December 15, 1892. His services as a Regent 

 were warmly recognized in the memorial and resolntions presented at 

 the meeting of the Board on Jannary 25, 1893. 



Senator Gibson bronght to the performance of his duties as Regent a 

 rare preparation as student, scholar, and statesman. With inherited 

 talents for oratory, and with strong literary tendencies, he was sur- 

 rounded in youth by all the influences that direct the energies of a man 

 to the public welfare. At Yale College he took a very prominent stand 

 in a group noted for talent and enthusiasm. Foreign travel, the study 

 of law, the life of a planter, a distinguished military career, and long 

 service in the Congress of the United States, filled his capacious mind 

 with a store of a rich and varied experience, and trained him for the 

 highest duties. Life was to him a consecration to public duty, and the 

 performance of that duty his highest felicity. Benevolent, brave, 

 patient, prudent, faithful, his grace and gentleness were the rich 

 drapery of an inflexible will and tenacious purpose. 



He came to the Smithsonian Institution as a servant animated by the 

 fullest sense of his responsibilities and self-pledged to a rigid ])erform- 

 ance of them. His interest in the Institution has been limited only by 

 the conditions of his i^osition. His death, which occurred at Hot 

 Springs, Ark., on December 15, 1892, is a loss to his State and his 

 country, in whose councils he has served for eighteen years. 



THOMAS GEORGE HODGKINS. 



Thomas George Hodgkins was born in England in 1803, and his 

 early boyhood was spent there. When about 17 years of age, led by 

 a youth's love of adventure, as well as by tbe desire to aid his family, 

 then in somewhat reduced circumstances, he shipped on one of the 

 East India Company's vessels, and made a voyage to the farther east, 

 where he narrowly escaped death by shii)wreck. Consequent upon 

 this misadventure, came confinement in a hospital in Calcutta for some 

 months. During this period of enforced quiet and physical inaction, 

 he formed the resolve that his life, if spared, should henceforth be 

 devoted to advancing the welfare of his lellow men. 

 SM 93 3 



