274 MEMORIAL OF JOSEPH HENRY. 



tively feeble and limited, and not practically utilized.* This inter- 

 esting digest presents one of the earliest and clearest theoretical 

 statements we have, of the correlation and transformation of the 

 physical forces; including with these the so-called organic forces. 



ADMINISTRATION OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 



By an Act of Congress approved August 10, 1846, the liberal 

 bequest to the United States, for the promotion of Science, by James 

 Smithson of London, England, was appropriated to the foundation 

 of the Institution bearing his name ; the establishment being made 

 to comprise' the chief dignitaries of the Government as the super- 

 vising body, and a Board of Regents being created for conducting 

 the business of the Institution after completing its organization. 

 As the testator had bequeathed his fortune,! in simple terms "for 

 the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men," there arose 

 not unnaturally a great diversity of opinion both among Congress- 

 men, and among the Regents, as to the most desirable method of 

 executing the purpose of the Will: and the organizing Act was 

 itself a sort of compromise, after many years of discussion and 

 disagreement in both branches of Congress. To literary men, no 

 instrument of knowledge could be so important as an extensive 

 Library: — to the professional, a seat of education or public instruc- 

 tion — general or special — supplemented by elaborate courses of 

 public lectures, appeared the obvious and necessary means of dif- 

 fusing useful learning, — to the "practical," a large agricultural 

 and polytechnic institute — supplemented perhaps by a museum, 

 was the only fitting plan of developing the resources of our coun- 

 try: -— to the artistic, extensive galleries of art were the most worthy 

 and instructive objects of patronage. The Regents sought counsel 

 from the distinguished and the learned : and several of them applied 

 to Professor Henry for his opinion. He gave the subject a careful 



* Proceed. Am. Phil. Soc. Dec. 20, ISU, vol. Iv. pp. 127-129. This appears to be the 

 first — as It is probably the best— analysis of physical energy, wiiicli has been 

 proposed. Twenty years later, a similar analysis (with certainly no improvement 

 In tlie classification) was adopted by Professor Tait, in an essay on "Energy;" 

 (Xorth liritisJi Review, 1861, vol. xl. art. ill. p. 191, of Am. edition :) and by Dr. Balfour 

 Stewart, in iiis Elementary Treatise on Heat, Oxford, 1800: (book ill. cliap. v. art. 388, 



p. :«!.) 



tTho whole amount of the bequest was a trifle over 100,000 pounds, or about 

 540,000 dollars. 



