154 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



than 200 columns. His astronomical calculations also fill 

 many pages of the Washington Observations. One of his last 

 researches related to the magnetism of iron ships, a subject which 

 a committee of the Academy afterwards investigated at the re- 

 quest of the Navy Department. 



Hubbard was present at the meeting in New York at which 

 the Academy was organized and welcomed its inauguration 

 in his enthusiastic manner as " the most important epoch ever 

 witnessed by science in America." He was not destined, how- 

 ever, to contribute to its developments as he died a few months 

 later, his demise having been hastened, as some have believed, 

 by the unhealthy surroundings of the old Naval Observatory at 

 Washington in which he labored. 



(From B. A. Gould, in Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of 

 Sciences, vol. I, 1877, PP- I-34-) 



ANDREW ATKINSON HUMPHREYS 

 Born, November 2, 1810; died, December 27, 1883 



Andrew Atkinson Humphreys was of Welsh ancestry. He 

 came from a family of naval constructors — his grandfather hav- 

 ing been the architect of the Constitution, and her five sister frig- 

 ates. After his graduation from the U. S. Military Academy at 

 West Point, Lieutenant Humphreys was assigned to the Second 

 Artillery, and served in the South, taking an active part in the 

 Florida War. Resigning his commission on account of impaired 

 health, he served for two years as a civil engineer under Major 

 Hartman Bache. On July 8, 1838, he became assistant in the 

 Bureau of Topographical Engineers at Washington. While in 

 this position he prepared the first project for the extension of the 

 National Capitol. In 1844 he was detailed as assistant in charge 

 of the Coast Survey Office. After eighteen years of work in his 

 profession he entered upon the great labors of original research 

 and administrative direction, which have made his name illustri- 

 ous. The Government having turned its attention to the ques- 

 tion of reclaiming the lands along the Mississippi subject to 

 inundation, and subsequently making two appropriations of 



