234 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 
leading army hospitals. Dr. Elliott Coues,? a Washington 
boy, was just beginning an enthusiastic ornithological 
career, and F. B. Meek,* the eminent paleontologist, was 
there busy with his fossils, his deafness excluding him from 
society or the army. 
Even the perils of the time were not without occasional 
gleams of the comic, as when Professor Henry was accused 
by a patriotic citizen of permitting signals from the 
Smithsonian towers to the enemy across the Potomac. 
This turned out to be the lanterns of students climbing 
the long flights of steps to their bedrooms high up in the 
towers. 
In January, 1865, a workman seeking a chimney for 
a stovepipe in an upper room by mistake inserted it in 
a hollow panel in the wall leading up to the wooden 
timbers of the roof. When a fire was kindled burning 
bits of paper were carried up, and on January 24th a 
conflagration resulted, which destroyed the upper story 
of the building, together with most of the records and 
files of correspondence of the Institution, apparatus for 
physical research, and much else. 
Professor Henry had invariably replied to all his 
correspondents with extreme courtesy, no matter how 
absurd the proposition advanced or question asked. 
When the inventor of a scheme for perpetual motion sent 
2 Elliott Coues, M.D., born in Portsmouth, N. H., Sept. 9, 1842; 
died Dec. 25, 1899. One of the most brilliant American students of 
birds and mammals; serving in the earlier years as army surgeon and 
explorer; later notable for his editions of Lewis and Clarke’s travels 
and those of other early explorers. 
3 Fielding Bradford Meek, born at Madison, Indiana, Dec. 10, 
1817; died at Washington, Dec. 21, 1876. Largely self-taught, he 
became one of our most distinguished paleontologists and contributed 
especially to our knowledge of the fossils of Illinois and Missouri. 
