THE INCORPORATORS 109 



United States," for the establishment of a biological laboratory 

 and school on Penikese Island, and many other enterprises. 

 Greatest of all was the organization of the Scientific School 

 and the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard. In the 

 latter, Agassiz's ideas on zoology were embodied in concrete form 

 in the zoological, geographical, and embryological series which 

 were there displayed. " By his large contributions to Science in 

 America, by his power of developing a true scientific spirit, to 

 excite and popularize the taste for scientific researches, by his vast 

 influence on the American mind, and his universal popularity, 

 which he kept to the very last, Agassiz had become emphatically 

 a national man." (Guyot.) He died on December 14, 1873. 



It was probably Agassiz who induced Senator Wilson to 

 introduce and urge the bill incorporating the National Academy 

 of Sciences, and when established he became its first Foreign 

 Secretary. 



(From ARNOLD GUYOT, in Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of 

 Sciences, vol. 2, 1 886, pp. 39-73. See also ELIZABETH C. AGASSIZ, "Louis 

 Agassiz; His Life and Correspondence," Boston, 1893; JULES MARCOU, "Life 

 and Letters of Louis Agassiz," Boston, 1895.) 



JOHN H. ALEXANDER 

 Born, June 26, 1812; died, March 2, 1867 



Dr. Alexander was a man of remarkable versatility. A 

 mathematician and a physicist, he was also a linguist and a 

 poet. He was a successful man of affairs and a deeply-read 

 student of theology and church history. His father, who be- 

 longed to a Scotch-Irish family, came to America before the 

 Revolution and settled at Annapolis, Maryland. Here John H. 

 Alexander was born in 1812. He was graduated from St. John's 

 College in his native town when fourteen years old and entered 

 upon the study of law. His attention being attracted, however, 

 to the great possibilities of steam transportation and the utiliza- 

 tion of the natural resources in iron and coal, he turned his 

 energies in the direction of practical pursuits. He was at first 

 connected with surveys for the Susquehanna Railroad (now 



