WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 59 



and 1905, and held other offices in its administration. He strongly 

 advocated the idea of making the society appeal to popular taste, 

 and this policy has since made it the largest scientific body in the 

 world, with a membership of 160,000. 



He was greatly interested in the Anthropological Society of Wash- 

 ington, serving as its president, and in 1911 he was also president of 

 the American Anthropological Society. In 1902 he was Vice Presi- 

 dent of the Archaeological Institute. He was one of the founders of 

 the Geological Society of Washington, and made many communica- 

 tions to it in its early days. He was one of the small group of geolo- 

 gists who organized the Geological Society of America, and for many 

 years he was editor of its bulletin. This publication had many novel 

 and admirable departures from old time methods, and its form was 

 copied by various other societies. In the earlier years of its existence 

 he attended all the meetings of the Geological Society of America 

 and frequently read papers. He was one of the original members of 

 the Association of American Geographers, and gave us two inter- 

 esting communications at the New York meeting in 1906. In 1904 

 Me Gee was chairman of the Organizing Committee for the Inter- 

 national Geographical Congress, and he was appointed United States 

 Commissioner to the International Committee of Archaeology and 

 Ethnology and senior speaker at the World's Congress of Arts and 

 Sciences. He was given the degree of LL.D. by Cornell College in 

 Iowa, in 1904. 



McGee died at the Cosmos Club in Washington on September 4, 

 1912, from cancer, which began developing in the prostate region some 

 years ago. The progression of the final stage of the disease was slow, 

 confining him to his room and then to bed for about two weeks, and 

 there were four days of coma at the end. 



With characteristic originality and desire to advance science, McGee 

 willed his body to the surgeons of Jefferson Medical College of Penn- 

 sylvania, and his brain to Doctor Spitzka. After the simple burial 

 service at the home of his close friend, Gifford Pinchot, the body was 

 taken to Philadelphia in compliance with the will. At the same 

 time there was forwarded to Doctor Spitzka the brain of Major 

 Powell, which has been in McGee's possession since 1903. There had 

 been some good natured rivalry between the two as to the greater 



