I 



296 MEMORIAL OF JOSEPH HENRY. 



At the time, and for years afterward, one-half of the Smith- 

 sonian income was diverted by the requirements of Congress to the 

 local objects of the Lyceum: and the hopelessness of attempting a 

 work additional to that already mapped out, which would require 

 the united labors of a large corps of well-trained and educated 

 assistants for many years, and the subsequent devotion of the whole 

 available income for many years following, to complete its publica- 

 tion, was fully realized. The project however was not abandoned : 

 and in 1854, Henry conceived the plan of taking up the more 

 limited department of American Scientific Bibliography; and by 

 the persevering application of a fixed portion of the income annually 

 for a succession of years, of finally producing a thorough subject- 

 matter index, as well as an index of authors, for the entire range of 

 American contributions to science from their earliest date. Inspired 

 with this ambition, he sought to enlist the co-operation of the 

 British Association for the Advancement of Science, in procuring 

 with its large resources, a similar classified index for British and 

 European scientific literature. 



The favorable reception of this project, was officially announced 

 to Henry by the Secretary of the Association, in the transmission 

 of the following extract from the proceedings of that body for 1855. 

 "A communication from Professor Henry of Washington having 

 been read, containing a proposal for the publication of a catalogue 

 of philosophical memoirs scattered throughout the Transactions of 

 Societies in Europe and America, with the offer of co-operation on 

 the part of the Smithsonian Institution, to the extent of preparing 

 and publishing in accordance with the general plan which might be 

 adopted by the British Association, a catalogue of all the American 

 memoirs on physical science, the Committee approve of the sug- 

 gestion, and recommend that Mr. Cayley, Mr. Grant, and Professor 

 Stokes be appointed a committee to consider the best system of 

 arrangement, and to report thereon to the council." * The report of 

 this committee dated 13th June, 1856, was presented to the succeed- 

 ing Meeting of the British Association ; in which they take occasion 

 to say : " The Committee are desirous of expressing their sense of 

 the great importance and increasing need of such a catalogue. - - 



* Report Brit. Assoc. Glasgow, Sept. 1855, p. Ixvi. 



