THE MUSEUM. 



21 



chusetts Institute of Technolog} , was 

 chosen as his successor. His term of 

 office was comparatively short, and 

 scarcely had four years elapsed when 

 he was called to join the silent major- 

 ity. The i\cademy then inaugurated 

 a different policy, and Professor O. C. 

 Marsh, of New Haven, so well known 

 for his studies in paleontology, being 

 at that time vice-president of the 

 Academy, was confirmed in the higher 

 office by his associates at the ensuing 

 election. Professor Marsh was then 

 and is still in the prime of his mature 

 manhood. He filled the office with 

 ability and judgment for two terms of 

 six years each, and, having declined a 

 third term, stepped down into the 

 ranks again. 



To fill his place the Academy has 

 chosen a veteran, and Wolcott Gibbs, 

 of Newport, R. I., the Nestor of 

 American chemists, was given the 

 high office of president of the Nation- 

 al Academy of Sciences. To even 

 briefly review the career of this emi- 

 nent scientist would be an arduous 

 undertaking and one that, to be well 

 done, must be lovingly done; for 

 among the teachers of science no one 

 has so thoroughly succeeded in at- 

 tracting students by the charm of his 

 personal magnetism, since the time of 

 Louis Agassiz as Dr. Gibbs. A word 

 or two must be given of his record. 



Seventy- three years ago, in Febru- 

 ary he was born in New York City, 

 and after graduation at Columbia and 

 study in Europe, he became a teacher 

 of chemistry. In 1849, a date when 

 several of the members of the Acad- 

 emy were not yet born, he was called 

 to the chair of chemistry and physics 

 in the College of the City of New 

 York, and, in 1863, he went to Cam- 



bridge to accept the Rumford profess- 

 orship in the Lawrence Scientific 

 School of Harvard University. Hav- 

 ing served there for more than a quar- 

 ter of a century, he was made emer- 

 itus, and then retired to his home in 

 Newport, where he devotes the leisure 

 of his maturing years to the prosecu- 

 tion of original investigations. Dur- 

 ing the civil war he was a member of 

 the executive council of the United 

 States Sanitary Commission, and to 

 him credit is given for the idea out of 

 which the Union League Club has 

 grown, of which he is the senior hon- 

 orary member. In returning to its 

 earlier traditions and choosing to its 

 highest office the most distinguished 

 of its members, the Academy has 

 adopted a course that cannot but be 

 of benefit to it. 



A home secretary was also chosen 

 at the recent meeting. Asaph Hall, 

 who found the moons of Mars for the 

 World in 1877, and achieved fame at 

 the same time, was continued in the 

 place that he had so acceptably filled 

 for many years. The headquarters 

 of the Academy are in Washington, 

 and therefore it is desirable that the 

 office of the secretary should be there 

 also. Professor Hall was for many years 

 connected with the United States 

 Naval Obrservatory, and is now on 

 the retired list, with liesure at his 

 command. 



In addition to the officers men- 

 tioned, George J. Brush, of the Shef- 

 field Scientific School; Benjamin A. 

 Gould, of Cambridge, Mass. ; Simon 

 Newcomb, of the United States Naut- 

 cal Almanac; Ira Remsen, of Johns 

 Hopkins University; George L. Good- 

 ale, of the botanical department of 

 Harvard University; and Othniel C. 



