THE INCORPORATORS 149 



In 1846 Henry resigned from Princeton and became the first 

 Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, then just established. 

 The following year he presented his plan of organization and 

 from that time until his death in 1878, a period of 31 years, 

 he devoted all his energies to its practical development, whereby 

 he gained an unique position among American men of science 

 and made the Smithsonian Institution better known throughout 

 the world than any other American institution. " His original 

 investigations during his thirty years at the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion," remarks Dr. Goode, "were not of great extent; but his 

 influence, not only upon the development of scientific work in 

 the United States, but upon its character, cannot be overestimated. 

 His official position brought him into constant contact, either 

 personally or by letter, with all in the United States who were 

 engaged in scientific work, and the inspiration and direct control 

 which he exercised were constant and far-reaching." Such 

 researches and studies as he undertook had their origin chiefly 

 in problems encountered or brought to his attention in the course 

 of his administrative work. They related to a great variety of 

 subjects — -acoustics, meteorology, education, the phenomena of 

 physical and organic forces, evolution, the qualities of building 

 materials and of illuminating oils, etc. 



In 1852 he was appointed by President Fillmore a member of 

 the Lighthouse Board. Early in the Civil War he, with Pro- 

 fessor Bache and Admiral Davis, was appointed by the Secretary 

 of the Navy on the commission to investigate various practical 

 questions connected with the operations of the Navy. It was the 

 work of this commission that appears to have suggested the 

 organization of the National Academy of Sciences in the form 

 which it finally assumed. Henry, according to his own utter- 

 ances, did not take part in its organization but he was one of the 

 charter members and the chairman of the first committee of the 

 Academy, that on weights, measures and coinage. In 1866 he 

 was elected Vice-President, and in 1868 became President, his 

 term of office extending over eleven years. 



(From Simon Newcomb, in Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy 

 of Sciences, vol. 5, 1905, pp. 1-45, and G. Brown Goode, in "The Smithsonian 



