SKETCH OF DR. JEFFRIES WYMAN. 359 



reliable sister, morphology, supported by relative position and mode 

 of development. 



In 1866 Prof. Wymau was named one of the seven trustees of the 

 Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, and be- 

 came curator. For this work he was peculiarly fitted, both by nature 

 and by his extensive observations upon crania, and his frequent in- 

 vestigations of shell-heaps, etc., during the trips to Florida, which his 

 health had of late years forced him to make. Our space will not per- 

 mit even a brief sketch of his labors in this new field ; the results are 

 modestly recorded in his annual reports. At present, the Museum is 

 very extensive and admirably arranged. Had Prof. Wyman been 

 spared lor another ten years, one can hardly predict its importance. 

 Of this, and of his own anatomical collections, the value is wholly out 

 of proportion to the size or actual cost in money, for they represent 

 the constant and skillful labor of a great anatomist during a quarter 

 of a century. The label upon every specimen tells the truth so far as 

 he knew it ; and in the descriptive catalogues are rich treasures of 

 fact and thought as yet unrevealed. 



Prof. Wyman always shrank from public notice, and from posi- 

 tions in which this was involved. He attended several meetings of 

 the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and served 



therein as president, treasurer, and secretary. But his communications "XT CJ TT\ T7 



were few, and comparatively unimportant. He was a member of the JL O _L JLd 



American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and was named by Con- 

 gress one of the original fifty members of the National Academy of 

 Science, but soon resigned. In strong contrast with his slender rela- 

 tions with these organizations is his record in connection with the Bos- 

 ton Society of Natural History. He early became an ardent member, 

 served as secretary, and as curator of several departments, and in 1856 

 became president. This office he held until 1870, when he offered an 

 unqualified resignation. 



Meagre as is the above account of his outer life, we shrink yet more J.\| 



from any such estimate of his abilities and his personal character as 

 the present occasion will permit. Admired and trusted by his asso- 

 ciates, by the younger naturalists he was absolutely adored. Ever 

 ready with information, with counsel and encouragement, so far from 

 assuming toward them the attitude of a superior, he on several occa- 

 sions permitted his original observations to be more or less merged 

 within their productions. The universal regard in which he was held 

 by them is, in the writer's case, intensified by the sense of peculiar -p. 



obligations, which might cloud his judgment of any ordinary man ; 

 but to no man more fitly than to Wyman could be addressed the lines : 



" None knew thee but to love thee, 

 Nor named thee but to praise." 



[ACCEPTED FOR PIMILICATION, MAY, 1852.] 



VOL ' V " ART. 4. 



