PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 323 



fire of that year. Whenever in any important case a scientific 

 adviser could be useful to the proper conduct of a Bureau, 

 Henry's reputation generally pointed hiin out as the most suit- 

 able expert and arbiter. On the outbreak of the great civil war, 

 the number of such references was naturally very considerably 

 increased. The Departments of War, of the Navy, and of the 

 Treasury, were besieged by projectors with every imaginable and 

 impossible scheme for saving the country, and demolishing the 

 enemy. Torpedo balloons, electric-light balloons, wonderful com- 

 pounds destined to supersede gunpowder, and revolutionize the 

 art of war; cheap methods for the manufacture of Government 

 bonds and paper-money, multitudinous expedients for the pre- 

 vention of counterfeiting, by devices in the engraving, by secret 

 markings, by anti-photographic inks, by peculiar textures of 

 paper, — applicable to coupons, to circulating notes, to revenue 

 stamps, — each warranted to be infallible, — such were among the 

 agencies by which patriotic patentees and adroit adventurers 

 were willing to serve their country and to reap their reward by 

 the moderate royalty or percentage due to the magnificence of 

 the public benefit. Such were among the unenviable tasks of 

 examination and adjudication accepted by Henry, only from an 

 intrepid sense of duty. 



" The course which has been pursued of rendering the Gov- 

 ernment in its late trials, every aid which could be supplied by 

 scientific research, has been warmly approved. As most persons 

 are probably entirely ignorant of the services really rendered to 

 the Government by the Institution, I may here state the fact that 

 a large share of my time, (all indeed which could be spared from 

 official duties,) has been devoted for the last four years to inves- 

 tigations required by the public exigencies. Within this period, 

 several hundred reports, requiring many experiments, and per- 

 taining either to proposals purporting to be of high national im- 

 portance, or relating to the quality of the multifarious articles 

 offered in fulfillment of legal contracts, have been rendered. The 

 opinions advanced in many of these reports, not only cost much 

 valuable time, but also involved grave responsibilities. While 

 on the one hand the rejection of a proposition would be in con- 

 travention to the high importance claimed for it by its author, on 

 the other the approval of it would perhaps incur the risk of the 

 fruitless expenditures of a large amount of public money. It is 

 not necessary, I trust, to say that the labor thus rendered was 

 entirely gratuitous, or that in the judgment pronounced in any 

 case, no regard was paid to the interested solicitations or per- 

 sonal influence of the parties concerned : on the contrary it has 

 in some instances resulted from the examination of materials sold 

 to the Government, that attempted fraud has been exposed, and 

 the baffled speculator received his due reward in condemnation 

 and punishment. These facts it is thought will be deemed a 



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