140 The Smithsonian Institution 



quired in the original smelting of the metal must represent at 

 least an equal amount of power. Hence his conclusion that 

 the fuel required for that purpose might with better advan- 

 tage be employed directly in performing the required work. 



" While feeling thus sure that electricity could not hope to 

 compete with, much less to supersede, steam as a primary 

 source of power, Henry, nevertheless, did not hesitate to pre- 

 dict that the electric motor was destined in the future to oc- 

 cupy an extensive field of usefulness, particularly in applica- 

 tions in which absolute theoretical economy was subordinate 

 to more important considerations. 



" Time has shown that Henry's conception of the legitimate 

 field of the electric motor was prophetically accurate." l 



v. 



WITH the organization of the Smithsonian Institution in 

 1846 came an entire change in Henry's life. Many years 

 before, while he was still a teacher in Albany, Smithson had 

 died in Genoa, leaving his bequest " for the increase and dif- 

 fusion of knowledge among men." When Henry first visited 

 Europe, in 1837, the bequest had only just become known, 

 and the claim of the United States was in course of prosecu- 

 tion in London. To this circumstance may, perhaps, be at- 

 tributed the interest which he seemed always to have felt in 

 the disposition of the Smithson fund. In the fall of 1846, after 

 the Regents of the new Institution had been appointed, a 

 committee of their own number was chosen to digest a plan 

 to carry out the provisions of the Act to establish the Smith- 

 sonian Institution. Henry's advice was sought by them, and 

 the plan proposed by him was embodied in the report which 

 they presented to the Board on the first of December. It 



1 The Electrical Engineer, London, February 13, 1891, Volume VII, page 169. 



