WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 67 



store of knowledge, that any of his host of intimates ever knew. He 

 was sympathetic and helpful, with almost unlimited ambition, and 

 ever ready, whatever the cost, to resent any seeming interference 

 with it. He was remarkably alert and resourceful, as an incident of 

 one of the meetings of the American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science will show. A local divine, mistaking McGee for a 

 fellow minister, invited him to fill his pulpit at a Sunday evening serv- 

 ice. McGee, although not affiliated with any church, immediately 

 accepted, and selecting as his text the words "Love ye one another," 

 delivered an address remarkable for its eloquence and replete with 

 human sympathy and understanding. 



McGee's interest extended to almost every branch of science, as 

 his constant activities in behalf of and his affiliation with many scien- 

 tific bodies attest. He became a member of the Anthropological 

 Society of Washington soon after coming to the Capital and served 

 as its President from 1898 to 1900. In 1902 he was foremost in the 

 founding of the American Anthropological Association, of which he 

 was elected the first president. When the American Anthropologist 

 was established in 1899, McGee became one of the two constructive 

 owners, sharing its financial responsibilities before it came under the 

 control of the American Anthropological Association. The scientific 

 and other learned organizations of which he was an active member 

 are too numerous to list here. 



The courage and fortitude, so characteristic of McGee in his most 

 active days, he did not permit to desert him toward the close of his 

 life. Aware of his fatal malady long before the end, he determined 

 to note carefully the progress of the disease (which first manifested 

 itself in the Sonora Desert fourteen years before), in the hope that 

 the interests of learning might be subserved. The result of these ob- 

 servations was published in Science shortly after his death. Not- 

 withstanding intense suffering and separation from all his kindred, 

 and with full knowledge of the inevitable, he worked assiduously on 

 the final revision of a scientific memoir which he finished on the eve 

 of the final dissolution. 



W J McGee was an unusually remarkable man. It would be a 

 difficult task to appraise now the value of his varied contributions to 

 knowledge, to recall even a tithe of his generosities, or to recount the 



