THE INCORPORATORS 193 



member of the first Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution and favored the plan of Joseph Henry for the organiza- 

 tion of that establishment. 



General Totten was deeply interested in many branches of 

 natural history, and particularly in mineralogy and conchology. 

 While Fort Adams was under construction, he spent his spare 

 hours in collecting shells in the vicinity of Newport and also 

 about Provincetown, Massachusetts. He published descriptions 

 of several new species, and a list of the shells of Massachusetts, 

 and furnished much important information for Gould's " Inver- 

 tebrata of Massachusetts." He presented his collection of rare 

 shells to the Smithsonian Institution. 



(From J. G. BARNARD, in Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of 

 Sciences, vol. I, 1877, pp. 35-97-) 



JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 

 Born, November 23, 1819; died, August 19, 1896 



Josiah Dwight Whitney, the oldest of a family of thirteen chil- 

 dren, was of English ancestry. Both the Dwight and Whitney 

 families were descended from early New England settlers, who 

 counted in their numbers graduates of Yale and Harvard, college 

 presidents, able business men, missionaries, soldiers, and mem- 

 bers of all the professions. Whitney was born at Northampton, 

 Massachusetts, November 23, 1819, and at eight years of age left 

 the district school in his native village and went to Plainfield, 

 where according to the custom of the day, Rev. Moses Hallock 

 took boys into his family for instruction. After further school- 

 ing at Round Hill, Northampton, New Haven, and Andover, he 

 entered Yale College as a sophomore in 1836. Returning to 

 New Haven after graduation, young Whitney entered his 

 father's bank, and for a time enjoyed the delights of a cultured 

 home, where music played a prominent part. Art, science, music, 

 law, and business attracted him by turn, but finally in 1839 he 

 yielded to his love for chemistry and entered the University of 

 Pennsylvania to study under Dr. Robert Hare. The following 

 year he made the acquaintance of Dr. Charles T. Jackson, and 



