324 BULLETIN OF THE 



suflBcient answer to those who have seemed disposed to reproach 

 the Institution with the want of a more popular demonstration 



but of a really far less useful or efficient aid in the support of 



the Government."* 



In the performance of these troublesome and often disagree- 

 able labors, conducted with the single aim necessitated by all his 

 scientific habits and instincts, it of course resulted that a great 

 majority of his judgments and recommendations were decidedly 

 adverse to the hopes and wishes of the aspirants to fame and 

 fortune. Having once satisfied himself of the frivolity or the 

 chicanery of an article or project, his decision was inflexible ; 

 and although importunate appeals to the Department Secretary, 

 abetted by a prostituted political or other influence, in one or 

 two instances succeeded in fastening for a time upon the public 

 Treasury a worthless or a noxious leech, the vast number of 

 such, excluded from experimental imbibitions by Henry's critical 

 supervision, must have been a protection to the public interests 

 quite beyond the reach of estimation : while the supplies of honest 

 contractors awarded their just commendation, and the rare pro- 

 posals of real merit favorably reported upon, which from a hasty 

 survey might have been confounded and overlaid with the mass 

 of untried puerilities, no less served to strengthen and assist the 

 Government during its years of greatest trial, need, and exhaus- 

 tion. 



From the outset of the unnatural sectional revolt, fully appre- 

 ciating the vastness of the interests, the sacrifices, and the dan- 

 gers involved, Henry contemplated the crisis — not with despond- 

 ency, but with a profound sorrow and solicitude. While his 

 sympathies and his hopes were all for the preservation of the 

 national integrity of jurisdiction, he was little given to public 

 exhibitions of his feelings. Undemonstrative — less from tem- 

 perament than from the deliberate and habitual subjection of 

 emotional expression to reason, during those times of feverish 

 excitement apprehension and circumspection necessarily attend- 

 ant on the prevalence of a gigantic rebellion (unparalleled in 

 incentive, in temper, and in magnitude) many of whose leadei's 

 had been among his personal friends, he was not unnaturally 

 looked upon by many as lukewarm in his patriotism, if not dis- 

 loyal in his citizenship. To the occasional innuendoes of the 

 press, he deigned no answers : he was the last man to accord 

 compliance with the urgency of a popular clamor. And yet 

 during the entire period of the Southern Insurrection, he was 

 the personal and trusted friend of President Lincoln. f 



* Smithsonian Report for 1864, p. 15. 



j- Early in tlie war (in the autumn of 1861,) a caller at the Presidential 

 Mansion very anxious to see the Chief Magistrate of the nation, was in- 

 formed that he could not then be seen, being engaged in an important pri- 

 vate consultation. The caller not to be repulsed, wrote on a piece of paper 



98 



