emy of Sciences, and were completed the year after his death in the 
“Phanerogamia of Pacific North America,” in Vol. 17 of the Report 
of the United States Exploring Expedition. His contributions to 
botany include more than forty titles, many of them volumes requiring 
years of patient study; they throw a flood of light on the plants of 
North America, and form a grand contribution to knowledge. His 
collections, on which these researches are based, were annotated and 
arranged by him with scrupulous care and exactness, and are treasured 
as among the most important of all scientific material in America. 
JOSEPH HENRY. 
By Ropert S. Woopwarb. 
This time, one hundred years ago, Joseph Henry, whose name and 
fame we honor today, was a lad seven years of age. He was born at 
Albany, New York, of Scotch parentage, his grand parents on both 
sides having come from Scotland in the same ship to the Colony of New 
York, in 1775. 
Doubtless he had himself in mind when in his mature years he 
affirmed that “The future character of a child, and that of a man also, 
is in most cases formed probably before the age of seven years.” At 
any rate, he found himself early, for at the age of sixteen he had deter- 
mined to devote his life to the acquisition of knowledge. ‘Thus he 
became, in turn, student; teacher; civil engineer in the service of his 
native State; professor of mathematics and natural philosophy in the 
Albany Academy; professor of natural philosophy in the College of 
New Jersey — now Princeton University — and a pioneer investigator 
and discoverer of the first order before he was thirty-three years of age. 
His inventions and discoveries in electromagnetism especially are 
of prime importance. They include the inventions of the electro- 
magnetic telegraph and the electromagnetic engine and the discovery 
of many of the recondite facts and principles of electromagnetic science. 
From the age of thirty-three, when he took up the work of his pro- 
fessorship at Princeton, till the age of forty-seven, when he was called 
to the post of Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, he pursued his 
original investigations with untiring zeal and with consummate experi- 
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