ADDRESS OF HON. 8. S. COX. 105 



riches, and all money whicli did not contribute to his lofty aims, 

 like the money of the fairy, was as ashes in his sight. 



With this idea of his trust need we wonder at his measureless 

 contempt for the mercenaries and jobbers who filled this city and 

 even dishonored the halls of legislation? His life was a living 

 protest against this age of thrift and greed. He drew his rules of 

 duty not from the silly codes of ostentatious modern society. The 

 wisdom and humanity, embodied in that ancient code of freedom 

 which the mailed barons and the great primate of England coerced 

 from an unwilling king, he applied to his function as a finder and 

 teacher of truth: "We will sell to no man; we will not deny or 

 delay to any man right or justice I" Joseph Henry had, as his 

 organic law from the Magna Charta engraved on the tablet of his 

 being, this affirmation : "/ will sell to no man, nor will I deny or 

 delay to any man the precious knowledge drawn under the providence 

 of God from the arcana of nature." 



But it is not by his personal virtues or official trustworthiness 

 that he will be best remembered ; not even by his varied accom- 

 plishments in the sciences, nor because he was a successful specialist 

 in many fields. Yet how multiplied and diverse were his gifts and 

 services? Did Japan try the experiment of progress, or Kane and 

 Hayes struggle to reach the North Pole and its open sea for 

 discovery — his sympathy was cordial and ready. Was it as an 

 engineer, geologist, mechanician, ethnologist, meteorologist, or archre- 

 ologist, he was equally at home in each and all. Was it in the 

 practical application of science ? As master of acoustics, he applied 

 his researches to buildings for human comfort, and to fog-signals 

 for the saving of values and life. Was it in optics? The greatest 

 star and the least atom were in harmony before his telescope and 

 microscope. Would Government know projectiles to use in war; 

 would the farmer know how his potatoes and wheat grew, or whence 

 the egg, and how it matured out of the elements into life — would 



