May 23, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



783 



the immeasurable history of the silent ages 

 of earth. 



One might linger long over many of 

 these lives whose interests were so remote 

 from thought of the commercial gains 

 their unselfish work made possible. But 

 there are other compensations, and there 

 are men here to-day who are aware that 

 there is no earthly pleasure more supreme 

 than to find disclosed some secret of nature 

 unlinown before, save to Him who set in 

 motion the complex mechanism of the 

 universe. 



The later life of the merchant and the 

 lawyer loses vitality of normal interest as 

 age comes on; not so the man of science. 

 The eternal love of nature is his — a mis- 

 tress of unfading charm. 



I remember once that, at my table, some 

 one asked that ever happy naturalist, Joseph 

 Leidy, if he were never tired of life. 

 "Tired!" he said, "Not so long as there is 

 an undescribed intestinal worm, or the 

 riddle of a fossil bone, or a rhizopod new 

 to me." 



My first remembrance of an Academy 

 meeting is of 1866. We met in a Smith- 

 sonian room. There were not more than 

 fifteen present. Professor Henry was in 

 the chair. 



I remember Benjamin Peirce, Wolcott 

 Gibbs and Gould. Agassiz sat on one side 

 of me, and on the other Coffin. It was all 

 very informal. The first scientific paper 

 was by Professor Peirce, who for twenty 

 minutes occupied us with algebraic form- 

 ulas and mathematical figures, until he 

 turned and said that he had got out of the 

 region of material illustration, and so led 

 us on through the endless equations in 

 which I had lost myself at the very outset. 



Agassiz turned to me at the close and 

 said, "Were you able to follow him?" 

 I said, "No; I can not do a sum in the 

 Eule of Three withoiit trying it over two 



or three times. ' ' Upon which the delighted 

 naturalist added, "Ni moi non plus." 

 Professor Coffin remarked, ' ' He was travel- 

 ing with Seven-league Boots over a country 

 across which I should have to crawl." 



Some of this was quite audible to Peirce, 

 who said that the only thing required was 

 more careful attention than men were will- 

 ing to give to the great science of mathe- 

 matics, and that our incapacity to under- 

 stand and follow him was due to our 

 want of proper education. 



He was succeeded by Agassiz, who made 

 the first announcement of his discovery of 

 the additional heart found in the tail of the 

 young of the salmon. 



I recall very little else about these de- 

 lightful people, except that they — all of 

 them — were not only in the peerage of 

 science, but also companions as socially 

 interesting as they were learned. 



Perhaps the most pleasant remembrance 

 I have of all is of Louis Agassiz and Joseph 

 Henry. The former was good euough to 

 take a great interest in some of the animal 

 physiology with which I occupied the rare 

 leisure of a hard-worked young doctor. 

 His enthusiasms were shown in odd ways 

 at times. 



On one occasion he was staying with Pro- 

 fessor Prazier, and dismissed me on the 

 front step one slippery day in February. I 

 had got some distance from him when he 

 came after me in haste, sliding over the 

 pavement. "I did want to say to you one 

 thing. Are you acquainted with the 

 opossum ? " I said, rather confused, " No. " 

 He said, "I advise you to acquire a physio- 

 logical friendship with the opossum. He 

 is a mine of physiological wealth." 



Jeffries Wyman, who was elected in 1872 

 and died in 1874, was another who held a 

 place in my most honoring regard. He 

 resembled Joseph Leidy in that splendid 

 magnanimity and unselfishness which con- 



