lO DAVENPORT ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES. 



regardless of party. The only outdoor address he ever delivered was 

 an eloquent and patriotic speech on the Fourth of July, i860, delivered 

 during the stress of the memorable campaign which preceded the war. 

 Without being a specialist in any department of science, Mr. Putnam 

 was a conscientious and constant student in many of its branches, and 

 gave it much of the leisure of a busy life. He became a member of 

 the Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences in 1869, not long after 

 its organization, serving as a trustee for fourteen years, as its Treasurer 

 during two years, as Chairman of its Finance Committee for many 

 more, as its President during the years 1885 and 1886, and was at 

 the time of his death its Corresponding Secretary. He, together 

 with his wife, had become especially interested in the Academy in 

 order to assist the scientific life-work of their eldest son, Joseph 

 Duncan Putnam. I'his son, although burdened with a fatal disease 

 during the last eight of his brief life-span of twenty-six years, succeeded 

 in becoming eminent not only in the special field of entomology to 

 which he devoted himself, and which gave him a world-wide reputa- 

 tion, but also in putting the Academy, its active work, its museum, its 

 library, its correspondence, and its publications, upon a permanent 

 foundation. The sympathy between parents and son was always very 

 strong, and in all of the projects which the latter formed for the ad- 

 vancement of the Academy's work and welfare, he found a friend and 

 counselor, and a strong financial supporter, in his father. After their 

 son's death, in 1881, Mr. Putnam and his wife continued their active 

 participation in the work of the Academy, having a strong feeling 

 that the different departments of this work, which the son had so largely 

 founded, should not suffer from neglect. During the remainder of his 

 life Mr. Putnam gave much of his time and thought to this institution 

 and its welfare. It is owing largely to his oft-repeated and unstinted 

 generosity, and to his wife's untiring labors, that the Academy has its 

 permanent building, and that it has been enabled to keep up its publi- 

 cations and carry on its work. During his ])residency he published, 

 in the Academy Proceedings, and separately, an extended treatise upon 

 the "Elephant Pipes and Inscribed Tablets in the Museum of the 

 Academy of Natural Sciences, Davenport, Iowa," containing an ex- 

 haustive discussion of the scientific problems and other questions 

 involved, and which called forth numerous letters of commendation 

 from eminent scientists in all parts of the world. He delivered two 

 annual addresses as President of the Academy, which are published in 

 its Proceedings. The scientific work which he accomplished, compar- 



