832 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVIII. No. 989 



and the commercial insight he brought to 

 the critical financial consideration of this 

 immense money trust. Not elsewhere was 

 he better seen or understood as conveying 

 the sense of character, and nowhere else 

 was he better loved. 



Numberless presidencies of societies fell 

 to his share, and the list of his honorary 

 titles from all of the greater academies and 

 universities at home and abroad served at 

 least to show in what esteem he was held 

 by men of science. These recognitions 

 gave, I suspect, more pleasure to his 

 friends than to this retiring and singularly 

 unambitious scholar. 



-• On public occasions, his personality 

 stood for something in the estimate of the 

 man. Tall and largely built, he was as a 

 speaker in the after-dinner hour or when 

 addressing a body of men a commanding 

 presence, with flow of wholesome English, 

 ready wit and humor such as rarely came 

 to the surface in his ordinary talk. The 

 figure of athletic build, the large blue eyes, 

 a certain happy sense of easy competence, 

 won regard and held the respectful atten- 

 tion of those who listened. For me there 

 was always some faintly felt sense of that 

 expression of melancholy seen often in men 

 who carry through a life of triumphant 

 success the traces of too terrible battle 

 with the early difficulties of their younger 

 days. 



^ What was most exceptional in this man 

 was the unfailing fund of energy on which 

 he drew for every novel duty and an indus- 

 try which never seemed to need the re- 

 freshment of idleness. He had that rare 

 gift- — the industry of the minute. "When 

 once I spoke of the need for leisurely play 

 and the exercise of open-air sports, he said 

 that he obtained recreation by turning 

 from one form of brain use to another. 

 That was play enough. I ought to add that 

 he found pleasure in reading novels, saying 



that one or two of an evening late were 

 agreeable soporifics. But these, like more 

 serious books, he devoured rather than 

 read as most men read, and what he read 

 he seemed never to forget. His memory 

 was like a good index of a vast mental 

 library. 



Until his later years Dr. Billings pos- 

 sessed the constitutional vigor which be- 

 friended him earlier as he responded to the 

 call of a succession of military and civic 

 duties. Of late years he was obliged to 

 undergo several surgical operations of 

 serious nature. He went to them with 

 confidence and courage, but before the last 

 one he said to me, "I am for the first time 

 apprehensive." He went on to add, "It is 

 a signal of age; and of late, as never be- 

 fore, any new project, any need for change 

 in the affairs of the library, I find arouses 

 in me an unreasonable mood of opposition. 

 This too is, I know, a sure evidence of my 

 being too old for my work. I shall, I 

 think, resign my directorship of the li- 

 brary. ' ' It was our last intimate talk. He 

 died of pneumonia after the operation, on 

 the eleventh of March, 1913. 



The scene at his burial in the military 

 cemetery at Arlington brought together 

 many men of distinction, a much moved 

 group of army men and the great library 

 officials. We left in the soldier burial 

 ground all that was mortal of a man who 

 combined qualities of head and heart such 

 as none of us will see again. 



Dr. Billings married Miss Kate M. 

 Stevens, in September, 1862. Their chil- 

 dren are: Mary Clure, Kate Sherman, 

 Jessie Ingram, John Sedgwick and Mar- 

 garet Janeway. 



Science is forever changing. The work 

 of to-day is contradicted to-morrow. Few 

 indeed are so fortunate as to leave in the 

 permanent remembrance of science conclu- 

 sive work. The man whose loss we regret 



