30 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. I., No. 2. 



beginning of his brilliant career. The father 

 was at the time a 3'oung professor of chem- 

 istry in Hampden-Sj'dnej' college ; he had 

 come to this country' from England a few years 

 before, to take a professorship) at Bo3'dton, 

 Va., having been induced to come to the United 

 States, partlj'' hy the solicitations of his Vir- 

 ginian relatives, and parti}' by considerations 

 connected with his romantic marriage to a 

 young Portuguese lady of noble birth. ■ In 

 1839 the elder Draper accepted the chair of 

 chemistrj' in the New- York university-, and 

 removed to the city with his family. Henry 

 Draper, therefore, though by birth a Virginian, 

 and mingling in his veins the blood of both 

 the Anglo-Saxon and the Latin races, was yet 

 entirely a New-Yorker in all his early associa- 

 tions and education, as well as in his later 

 life. 



He was educated in the schools of the city, 

 and in the universitj^ with which his father 

 was connected. He entered the freshman 

 class at the age of fifteen, and went through 

 the first two years of the college course. His 

 instructors remember him as a bright, active 

 youth, full of spirits, but with a strong taste 

 and bent for scientific pursuits. At the begin- 

 ning of his ^nior year he left the college for 

 the medical school, and in 1858 he took his 

 degree of M.D. with distinguished honor. 



His education was conducted throughout 

 under the immediate and loving supervision of 

 his father, from whom he inherited such quali- 

 ties of mind and temperament as qualified him 

 pre-eminentlj' for the work he was to do. A 

 writer in ' Harper's weekly,' speaking of this, 

 says, — 



" He had for a companion, friend, and teacher 

 from childhood, one of the most thoroughly cultivated 

 and original scientific men of the present age, who 

 attended carefully to his instruction, and impressed 

 upon him deeply the bent of his own mind in the 

 direction of science. The boy was, in fact, immersed 

 in science from his youngest years; and not merely 

 crammed with its results, but saturated with its true 

 spirit at the most impressible period ; he was taught 

 to love science for the interest of its inquiries, and 

 was early put upon the line of investigation in which 

 he has won his celebrity. He inherited not only his 

 father's genius, but his problems of research. 



"Dr. John W. Draper was an experimental investi- 

 gator of such fertility of resource, and such consum- 

 mate skill, that the European savants always deplored 

 his proclivity to literary labors, as a great loss to the 

 scientific world. Henry Draper inherited from his 

 father in an eminent degree the aptitude for delicate 

 experimenting, and a fine capacity of manipulatory 

 tact." 



Nothing could be more beautiful than the 

 relation and intercourse between this father 

 and son in later years : on one side was the 

 sincerest filial devotion, respect, and admira- 

 tion ; on the other, paternal pride and confi- 

 dence ; on both sides, the warmest afl'ection, 

 and perfect sympathy of purpose and idea. 



Dr. Henry Draper began his researches be- 

 fore he left the college walls. His graduating 

 thesis was a reallj^ valuable investigation of the 

 functions of the spleen, and was conducted by 

 means of microphotograjDhj-, an art then only 

 newly born. In the course of this work he 

 discovered the great value of palladium proto- 

 chloride in the darkening of collodion nega- 

 tives. The 3'ea.r after his graduation was 

 spent in Europe ; and there, while he did not 

 fail to appreciate and enjoj- all that is inter- 

 esting to everj' man of culture, still he was 

 most interested in the places, metliods, and 

 instruments of scientific research. His visit 

 to the great sis-foot reflecting telescope of 

 Lord Rosse, by far the largest ever con- 

 structed, gave to his ambition a stimulus and 

 direction which influenced his whole life, and 

 largely' determined his career. 



On his return he received an appointment in 

 Bellevue Hospital, which he retained for six- 

 teen months, with the intention of ijractising 

 medicine. In 1860, however, he abandoned 

 this purpose ; and bj' accepting the chair of 

 physiologj' m the academic department of the 

 universitj', he definitelj' adopted the profes- 

 sion of an instructor. During the ci^^l war 

 his work was for a time interrupted by a short 

 term of ser^dce in 1862 as surgeon of the 

 twelfth regiment of New-Y(5rk volunteers ; 

 but a military- career had few attractions for 

 him, and as soon as he was no longer needed he 

 returned to the duties of his chair. In 1866 he 

 was appointed to the professorship of phj'siol- 



