238 The Smithsonian Institution 



Doctor Kidder's first duty was in Philadelphia. After a 

 year he went to Japan, where he quickly acquired the lan- 

 guage of the country, and in other ways established the repu- 

 tation which attached to him throughout his career for his 

 "capacity for taking pains." While on this foreign service 

 he was decorated by the King of Portugal in recognition of 

 services to a distressed vessel of his Majesty's navy. 



Doctor Kidder took part in observing the transit of Venus 

 at Kerguelen Island, in 1874, as surgeon and naturalist of the 

 expedition, and the excellent results of his scientific labors 

 and researches therewith were described in bulletins of the 

 United States National Museum. After the return of this 

 expedition, Doctor Kidder arranged his specimens and col- 

 lections in the Smithsonian Institution, and began those 

 kindly and intimate relations with it which continued through 

 the remainder of his life. 



In 1878 Doctor Kidder married, in Constantinople, Annie 

 Mary, daughter of the Honorable Horace Maynard, Minister 

 of the United States to Turkey, and in 1884, having inherited 

 an adequate fortune, he resigned his commission and estab- 

 lished his home in Washington, and organized the bacterio- 

 logical laboratory in connection with the Navy Museum of 

 Hygiene, and also made a sanitary survey of the site pro- 

 posed for the Naval Observatory. Later he was appointed 

 chemist of the United States Fish Commission, and in that 

 capacity became one of the most trusted advisers of Pro- 

 fessor Baird. His laboratory was in the Smithsonian build- 

 ing ; and, under the direction of the Secretary of the In- 

 stitution he made, at the request of Congress, an exhaustive 

 study of the ventilation of the Capitol and of the air in the 

 Senate chambers and the hall of the House, and submitted an 

 extended report for the use of the committees engaged upon 

 the sanitary reform of the building. In 1887, after the death 



