628 
was from the observations made by him 
then that he was able later to advocate with 
such remarkable power the great superior- 
ity of railroads to canals, and also the plan 
of a system of railroads connecting the 
waters of the Hudson with those of the 
Mississippi. In a pamphlet, which he issued 
in 1829, he startled the community by the 
boldness of his project. He says, referring 
to the territory east of the Mississippi : 
This great plateau will, indeed, one day be 
intersected by thousands of miles of railroad 
communications ; and so rapid will be the in- 
crease of its population and resources, that 
many persons now living will probably see 
most or all of this accomplished.* 
To the scientific world Redfield, however, 
is best known by his development of the 
law of storms. Essentially his theory was 
that a storm was a progressive whirlwind. 
For years he kept his theory to himself, 
and it was not till accumulative evidence 
established in his own mind the correct- 
ness of his convictions that he gave to the 
world, through the American Journal of Sei- 
ence, his valuable series of papers on that 
science which we now dignify by the name 
of meteorology. 
Through the long years of his life Mr. 
Redfield was actively engaged in business, 
having established a line of two barges be- 
tween New York City and Albany, and it 
was only such time as could be spared from 
more important pursuits that he devoted to 
the higher cause of science. The fossils, 
the ripple marks and the rain-drops in the 
sandstones of Connecticut and New Jersey 
interested him, and the papers which he 
read before this Association towards the 
close of his career pertained to his studies 
in geology. He died in New York City on 
July 12, 1857. 
HENRY. 
The selection of Joseph Henry, in 1846, 
to be the guiding hand of the then newly 
* Route of a Great Western Railway, 1829. 
SCIENCE. 
[N. S. Vou. X. No. 253. 
established Smithsonian Institution, made 
him, perhaps the most conspicuous repre- 
sentative of American science of his time. 
Henry was born in Albany just a century 
ago, and there he grew up and was edu- 
cated. Asa student, as a teacher, and as 
a professor, he was connected with the Al- 
bany Academy, and in that institution he 
carried on those researches in electricity 
which made the electromagnetic telegraph 
of Morse possible. In other words, Henry 
was the first to construct and use an elec- 
tromagnetic acoustic telegraph of a type 
similar to that which is at present more 
generally employed than any other form. 
The code of signals now in general use had 
not at that time been invented.* In refer- 
ring to his researches. Sir David Brewster 
says: ‘‘On the shoulders of young Henry 
has fallen the mantle of Franklin.” + In 
1832 he accepted a call to the chair of nat- 
ural philosophy, in Princeton, and for four- 
teen years led the peaceful life of a college 
professor in a rural university town. 
Then came the call to Washington, and 
dubious as to the future, he said: ‘‘If I 
go I shall probably exchange permanent 
fame for transient reputation.” } The path 
of duty was clearly defined, and yielding 
to the solicitation of his associates, such as 
Bache, Hare and Silliman, he accepted the 
appointment of secretary of the Smithsonian 
Institution. Of his career in Washington a 
contemporary says: 
Called to administer the Smithsonian trust, 
his conscientious devotion gave it from the first 
the direction designed by the testator. His 
aim was to originate and disseminate. He 
scattered the seed broadcast, not through whim 
or fayoritism, but on a matured plan. His 
* Sketch of Joseph Henry, by G. Brown Goode, in 
The History of the First Half Century of the Smith- 
sonian Institution. Washington, 1897, p. 134. 
ft Idem, p. 122. 
{A Memorial of Joseph Henry, with an engraved 
portrait on steel. Washington, 1880, p. 276. Dis- 
course of William B. Taylor. 
