144 LEADING AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



our notice. In his unselfish devotion to knowledge he sowed that 

 others might reap, on the broad humanitarian ground that a 

 valuable harvest would be sure to find a reaper while the seed might 

 wait in vain for a sower. Had this been done solely in his individ- 

 ual character we should have looked upon his course with admira- 

 tion; but in bringing the principle into the Smithsonian Institution 

 he avoided a danger and rendered a benefit for which we cannot 

 be too grateful. To this principle is due the fact that the Institu- 



>tion never appeared as a competitor, seeking an advantage for 

 itself, but always as the active cooperator in every enterprise tend- 

 ing to carry out the object prescribed by its founder. 



So vast was the field which even with these restrictions Henry 

 had before him that this readiness to abandon portions of it to 

 others might seem very natural did we not know by experience 

 how apt the contrary view is to prevail. Besides his electric re- 

 searches and his establishment of a meteorological system his 

 field of work took in such subjects as the physical geography of 

 his native state, terrestrial magnetism, capillarity, molecular 

 physics, observations of meteors, phosphoresence, solar physics, 

 protection from lightning, observations of the aurora, the radia- 

 tion of heat, the strength of building materials, experiments on an 

 alleged spontaneous separation of alcohol and water, aeronautics, 

 the ventilation of buildings, the phenomena of sound, and various 

 other subjects hardly admitting of classification. 



One of his interesting traits of character, and one which power- 

 fully tended to make the Smithsonian Institution popular and use- 

 ful, was a certain rnt^llerhial phi[^nthropy which showed itself 

 in ceaseless efforts to make others enjoy the same wide views of 

 nature which he himself did. He was accessible to a fault, and ever 

 ready to persuade any honest propounder of a new theory that he 

 was wrong. The only subject on which the writer ever had to 

 express to him strong dissent from his views was that of the practi- 

 cability of convincing "universe-makers" of their errors. They 

 always answered with opposing arguments, generally in a tone of 

 arrogance or querulousness which deterred even the modest Henry 

 from replying further; but in spite of oft-repeated failure he still 



