108 MEMOKIAL OF JOSEPH HENRY. 



never ceased to investigate the uses and the correlation of forces, 

 and the modification and conservation of energy. Here his faith 

 was paramount to liis knowledge. Whether the energy possessed 

 by any set of bodies were potential, stored up and unseen, or 

 whether it were visibly performing its work; yet in all its phases 

 he believed it never altered. Wherever it might go, and howsoever 

 it might elude human vigilance, it was not lost. It was conserved. 

 It could not but by "annihilation die," and God pei'mitted no 

 annihilation of his forces. These studies led him to the grand 

 discovery by which he will be ever remembered. 



Above all, he was an electrician. Columbus had no better title 

 to the discovery of the new world than Henry has to the discovery 

 of the principle of the magnetic telegraph. Make a catalogue of 

 his score and more of general and special services in science; digest 

 his thirty years of Smithsonian reports, and at last his simple 

 magnet — the horseshoe — is the emblem and evidence of his power 

 over the wizardry of nature in her most marvelous manifestations. 



His experiences from youth fitted him for his work. His Scotch 

 Presbyterianisra did not unfit him for a combat with the dia- 

 blerie of the storm. His engineering from the Hudson to Erie 

 strengthened him for the labor limce of closet and laboratory. His 

 experience as a jeweler-journeyman gave him a knowledge of mech- 

 anism and tools not to be despised in experiment and in an age 

 which Carlyle sings as that of "Tools and the man." His pro- 

 fession of mathematics gave precision to his thoughts and calcula- 

 tions. Only one anomaly appears in his early days, before the 

 magnetic current attracted him by its spell. He loved fiction, 

 poetry, and play-acting. Like Ampere and other scientists, he, 

 too, had his romantic mood and his tender age. Perhaps this tend- 

 ency quickened his imagination and gave hope and success to his 

 experiments by its a priori allurements; AVhy should it not? 

 Hypothesis may be delusive; so was alchemy, but it was the pro- 



