WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 41 



as he was of it on an amazing variety of subjects) that he had to com- 

 municate. The special quality of his discourse was that it was illu- 

 minative. When he talked, it was as if he lighted a candle inside 

 of a lantern. 



To most people, things assume a certain appearance because they 

 are accustomed to be seen from a certain standpoint. But Doctor 

 McGee was intellectually stereoscopic. He would place his listener 

 at a new angle with the subject under discussion, whatever it might 

 be whereupon it assumed an entirely new and surprising aspect. 

 Often one saw it for the first time as it really was. 



What we call "intellect" is understood to mean a superior degree 

 of intelligence. But this definition I hold to be inadequate. Intel- 

 lect properly signifies a distinct plane of mentality. 



Who would think of referring to Doctor McGee as a "highly in- 

 telligent" man, or a "very clever" man? Such terms as applied to 

 him would be absurd. He was something entirely different; and the 

 difference was not one merely of degree, but of kind. 



If the man of intellect be understood to represent a distinct psychic 

 type, Doctor McGee was obviously a most striking and conspicuous 

 example of that type. His was an intelligence raised to the nth power. 

 It was of a quality unapproached save by a few individuals in each 

 generation of the world's human product. 



His record proved him a man of undaunted and indomitable pluck 

 and will-power as shown, for example, on the occasion of his won- 

 derful journey alone across a waterless desert in Sonora. But the 

 same quality was exhibited even more strikingly perhaps during the 

 last years of his life, when, although dying by inches of a lingering 

 and hopeless disease, he kept steadfastly on with his work, while dis- 

 playing the unfailing cheerfulness under adverse circumstances which 

 is at once the highest exhibition and the best proof of a noble courage. 



From Doctor H. Foster Bain, of San Francisco: 



I have always felt that I owed a good deal to the kindly interest of 

 Doctor McGee at the time when I was a beginner. 



I remember especially the first paper I presented to the Iowa Acad- 

 emy of Science. I suppose one always remembers his first scientific 

 paper with especial interest, probably out of all proportion to the 



