102 MEMORIAL OF JOSEPH HENRY. 



who colonized men, conquered nature, and achieved civilization 

 along the shores of the classic azure sea. ' 



In this age of physical progress and grandeur, when experiments 

 show that the "constant elements" are coquetting with us by their 

 inconstancy ; when the tough old gases are being tortured, liquefied, 

 and solidified; when oxygen no longer holds out and hydrogen 

 begins to succumb; when microphones, telephones, phonographs, 

 and electric lights and Menlo Park wizards, astound us by their 

 miracles; when cables are duplexed and spectroscopes are bringing 

 down almost to our crucibles those remote stars fixed and " pinna- 

 cled dim in the intense inane;" when Lockyer is said to be 

 proving by the bands' of the spectrum the unity of nature, by 

 showing that all the elements are in some modification, our familiar 

 hydrogen; when the many are made one,* of all elements are unified, 

 it is no light honor to be the hero or even one of the heroes of 

 such an age, — an age not merely of iron and steam and gold, but 

 emphatically the age of light and lightning! 



What Archimedes was to the lever, Newton to gravitation, 

 the Herschels to astronomy, Davy to the mining lamp, ToRi- 

 cei.li to the barometer, Gioja to the compass, Rumford to heat, 

 Faraday to electro-chemical affinity, Boyle to pneumatics, 

 Gutenberg to printing, Watt to steam, Fraunhofer to the 

 spectrum. Draper to jihotography, and what Lockyer is becom- 

 ing to spectroscopic analysis, that was Henry to electro-magnetic 

 force. No quest for the holy grail was ever made with more 

 chivalric, vigilant, and reverent pursuit than he made for the 

 subtile and secret forces of the magnet. 



Yet this man moved in our midst for thirty years, little known to 

 the throng who visit and vanish here with our political vicissitudes. 

 With them he had little or no fame. "He pursued no devious path 

 to fleeting honors. But there was nothing wanting to give him 

 present delectation and lasting renown. His old-time courtesy, his 



