BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF JOSEPH HENRY. 169 



interpretation of this phenomenon ? Simply that one part of the con- 

 tents of the shell has run down into carbonic acid and water, and thus 

 evolved the power necessary to do the work of building up the future 

 animal. In like manner when the tadpole is converted into a frog the 

 animal for a while loses weight. A portion of the organism of its tail 

 has been expended developing the power necessary to the transforma- 

 tiou, while another portion has served for the material of the legs. 



AYhat, then, is the ofidce of vitality ! We say that it is analogous to 

 that of the engineer who directs the power of the steam-engine in the ex- 

 ecution of its work. Without this, in the case of the Gg;g, the materials, 

 left to the undirected force of affinity, would end in simply producing 

 chemical compounds — sulphuretted hydrogen, carbonic acid, &c. There 

 is no special analogy between the process of crystallization and that 

 of vital action. In the one case definite mathematical forms are the 

 necessary results, while in the other the results are precisely like those 

 which are produced under the direction of will and intelligence, evincing 

 a design and a purpose, making provision at one stage of the process for 

 results to be attained at a later, and producing organs intended e\adently 

 for locomotion and x^erception. Not only is the result the same as that 

 which is produced by human design, but in all cases the power with 

 which this principle operates is the same as that with which the intelli- 

 gent engineer i^roduces his result. 



This doctrine was first given in a communication to the American 

 Philosophical Society in December, 18-14, and more fully developed in a 

 paper i)ublislied in the Patent Office Eeport in 1857. 



The publication in full of three of the series of investigations herein 

 described was made in the Transactions of the American Philosophical 

 Society. Others were published in Sillimau's Journal, and both these 

 are noticed in the Royal Society's Catalogue of Scientific Papers; but 

 the remainder of them were published in the Proceedings of the Ameri- 

 can Philosophical Society, and are not mentioned in the work just 

 referred to. 



In 1840, while still at Princeton, I was requested by members of the 

 Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, which was then just 

 founded, to study the will of Smithson, and to give a plan of organiza- 

 tion l)y which the object of the bequest might be realized. My conclu- 

 sion was that the intention of the donor was to advance Science by origi- 

 nal research and ])ublication ; that the establishment was for the benefit 

 of niankiud generally, and that all unnecessary expenditures on local 

 objects would be violations of the trust. The plan I proposed for the 

 organization of the Institution was to assist men of science in making 

 original researches, to j^ublish these in a series of volumes, and to give 

 a copy of these to every first-class library on the face of the earth. 



I was afterward called to take charge of the Institution and to carry 

 out this plan, which has been the governing j)olicy of the establishment 

 from the beginning to the present time. 



One of the first enterprises of the Smithsonian Institution was the 

 establishment of a system of simultaneous meteorological observations 

 over the whole United States, especially for the study of the phenomena 

 of American storms. 



For this purpose the assistance of Professor Guyot was obtained; who 

 drew up a series of instructions for the observers, which was printed 

 and distributed in all parts of the country. He also recommended the 

 form of instruments best suited to be used by the observers, and finally 

 calculated, with immense labor, a volume of meteorological and physical 

 tables for reducing and discussing observations. These tables were 



