364 JOSEPH HENRY. 



of covering the United States, and eventually the North American 

 continent, with a net-work of meteorological stations, which, with the 

 facilities of the telegraph, yet in its infancy, would prove a perennial 

 blessing to commerce and agriculture ; and, by consolidating the scat- 

 tered efforts of eminent meteorologists (among whom Coffin, Espy, 

 Loomis, and Guyot were conspicuous), throw some light on the law of 

 storms and meteorology in general. In the Patent Office Report for 

 1857, he gave his views of the relations between meteorology and agri- 

 culture. In this and other ways, the Smithsonian Institution has been 

 a hot-bed for starting and nursing new projects in their days of in- 

 fancy and weakness. After they have outgrown its accommodations 

 and proved their usefulness, they h;ive been adopted by the general 

 government and transplanted to a richer soil. 



Fur many years Professor Henry has been a conspicuous figure, not 

 merely in scientific circles, but in the full view of the public; his name 

 and his co-operation have been in constant demand. He naturally 

 gravitated to places of honor which were often places of additional 

 labor. Men of leisure have no time to give to occasional calls upon 

 their public spirit. The hard-workers must also do all the extra work. 

 Professor Henry was no exception to this rule. To the day of his 

 death, he filled positions of trust and responsibility, with duties sufficient 

 to crush an effeminate man. But they seemed to rest lightly upon shoul- 

 ders which sustained, heside, the weight of a great institution. His mind 

 was ever in a state of prolonged tension ; but it kept its balance under 

 these distractions, as do the rings of Saturn amid the multitudinous dis- 

 turbances of its satellites. Often he waited for the leisure which never 

 came to him wheu he might write out for publication scientific com- 

 munications which he had made from a brief. He was President of 

 the American Association at its second meeting, in Cambridge, in 1849. 

 He gave the usual address of the retiring President at the fourth meet- 

 ing, in New Haven, but it was not printed. He was Vice-President 

 of the National Academy of Sciences in I860, succeeded Dr. Bache 

 as President in 18G8, and died in office. 



The most responsible and the most onerous of the gratuitous ser- 

 vices which he gave to science and the country were rendered in his 

 capacity of member of the Light-House Board, of which he was for 

 seven years the chairman. The substitution of lenses for mirrors began 

 the revolution in light-houses; but lens or mirror, without the light, is 

 no better than a steam-engine without steam. To conquer prejudice 

 by experiment, and save millions to the country by exchanging sperm 

 oil for lard oil, is not so brilliant a service as the discovery of a new law 



