BIOGRAPHICAL MEMORIAL, 



BY 



PROFESSOR ASA GRAY, 



IN BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF REGENTS. 



The Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, on the day following 

 the obsequies of their late Secretary, resolved to place upon record, 

 by the hands of their committee, a memorial of their lamented 

 associate. The time has arrived when this should be done, now that 

 the Institution enters upon another official year, and its bereavement 

 is brought freshly to mind. 



Although time may have assuaged our sorrow, as time will do, 

 and although the recollection that a well-spent life was well appre- 

 ciated and not prematurely closed, should temper regret, yet they 

 have not dulled our sense of loss, nor lessened our estimate of the 

 signal services to science, to this Institution, and to the general 

 good which remarkable gifts and a devoted spirit enabled this man 

 to render. 



If we would fit this memorial to the subject of it, we must keep 

 in mind Professor Henry's complete and transparent, but dignified 

 simplicity and modesty of character, in which a delicate sense of 

 justice went along with extreme dislike of exaggeration, and aver- 

 sion to all that savored of laudation. 



Yet it is not for ourselves, his associates — some of few, some of 

 many years — that this record is made; nor need we speak for that 

 larger circle of his associates, the men of science in our land, who 

 will, in their several organizations, recount the scientific achieve- 

 ments of their late leader and Nestor. And nothing that we can 

 say will enhance the sentiments of respect, veneration, and trust with 



which he was regarded here, in Washington, by all who knew him, 



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