196 The Smithsonian Institution 



Washington such a flood of material that a new museum is 

 absolutely indispensable for its reception. 1 



"The Fish Commission, with all its grand results, is the 

 product of his enterprise and good management. This in it- 

 self would constitute a monument that should satisfy the am- 

 bition of any man, but it is only one of the good works of the 

 purest, best, kindliest, and most useful man of science America 

 has yet produced. 



" He was constantly doing good to others, and was the 

 most unselfish of men. Nothing gave him greater pleasure 

 than to encourage and push forward the young men about 

 him. 



" Among the collections which I brought from Oregon was 

 a woodpecker, supposed to be new. Of this he wrote and 

 published a description, crediting the species to me without 

 my knowledge or consent, for the credit of the discovery all 

 belonged to him. He was just as generous in his dealings 

 with all others, and he seemed to be entirely free from the 

 desire for notoriety which is so common among scientific men. 

 He had his ambition, of course, but it was of a lofty and un- 

 selfish kind, for the advancement of science ; and for the ac- 

 complishment of this he preferred to encourage and help all 

 true workers rather than to monopolize material and gain 

 honor and fame for himself. 



" Only once did I have any difference with Professor Baird. 

 I questioned the policy of Professor Henry, who desired to 

 make the Smithsonian a mere bureau of information and an 



1 Doctor Billings writes : " It was the pos- friend, Mr. Marsh, about a scheme for a na- 

 sibility of creating a great museum of natural tional museum, and a year later he got so far 

 history that induced him to come to the Smith- as to consider plans and size of buildings, 

 sonian, and he never lost sight of this object ; having in view apparently something like the 

 but for a long time he had to work largely by Crystal Palace. He was not working aim- 

 indirect methods. He did not directly op- lessly all those years. He could not have 

 pose the policy of Professor Henry, and al- what he wanted just then, but he had faith 

 ways worked harmoniously with him, but he in the future, and meantime went on with his 

 lost no opportunity of increasing the collec- duties, which Mr. Marsh [Life and Letters 

 tions, and constantly urged that the best way of George P. Marsh. Volume I, page 262], 

 to induce Congress to grant the means of characterized as 'answering of foolish letters, 

 caring for such things was to accumulate ma- directing of packages to literary societies, 

 terial worth caring for until its amount and reading of proof-sheets, and other mechanical 

 value should be such that public opinion operations pertaining unto the diffusion of 

 would demand ample accommodation for it. knowledge.'" ("Biographical Memoirs of the 

 So early as 1853 we find him writing to his National Academy." Volume III, page 145.) 



