XXXII REPORT ON THE HENRY STATUE. 



men. His official correspondence would have been burdensome had it 

 been merely a correspondence of routine, but much of it involved pro- 

 found reflection, productive invention, and the skillful enforcement of 

 principles. Into all these services he entered with a spirit which was 

 conscientious and patient in the extreme. 



It would not have been surprising if his scientific ardor had thereby 

 been cooled, his invention bad been limited, and his many-sidedness 

 had been curtailed. This does not seem to have been true. From the 

 beginning to the end of these more than thirty years he was almost as 

 inventive, ingenious, alert, and wide-minded as when he achieved the 

 triumphs of his earliest manhood. Though many of his discoveries and 

 inventions were in the line of his official responsibilities, they all bore 

 the stamp of scientific genius. During all this period, it should be re- 

 membered, the sciences of nature were making a progress such as the 

 world had never witnessed before — progress in every form, from the 

 severest mathematical analysis, through the ever ascending steps of ad- 

 venturous speculation, up to the most gorgeous cloud-lands of theory. 

 Experiment, too, had never made such daring ventures, whether in 

 the form of applications to art or the determination of problems purely 

 scientific. With every one of these onward movements, whether of 

 theory or experiment, Professor Henry was in active sympathy. In 

 many of the most important he was the leader of thought and act, as 

 witness his place in the very earliest anticipations of the doctrine of the 

 correlation of force; his prophetic experiments and suggestions in re- 

 spect to the use of the telegraph in meteorological observations and the 

 reports of astronomical discovery ; his devices to render available the 

 reports and essays scattered over the scientific world by a systematized 

 bibliography; his long-continued researches in respect to light aod 

 sound which were incidental to bis official experiments as a member of 

 the Light-House Board; his comprehensive experiments in respect to the 

 sustaining capacity of building stone; and his never-ceasing study of 

 acoustics in every possible production, prolongation, and disturbance 

 of sound, whether in his own parlor,' in solitary walks, in fog or sun- 

 shine, or in travel by land or sea. 



It was, as I have said, a great thing for science and for the' country, 

 that in this formative and fermenting period such a man resided at the 

 capital and represented the interests of science by his official connec- 

 tion with this one national institution which was sacredly devoted to 

 scientific research and information. He had foreseen and foretold from 

 the first that Washington would certainly become a great center of sci- 

 entific activity; that it must inevitably be the residence and resort of 

 an increasing number of men of scientific tastes and pursuits. He had 

 this in mind from the first, and uttered it as a prophecy, before his own 

 policy in respect to the Smithsonian Institution had been accepted, and 

 long before the signs had multiplied of its speedy fulfillment. 



This fulfillment was indeed conditional on the continuance of the 



