400 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 
the Board authorized the use of it for the Inaugural Ball 
of the Garfield administration. A seagoing steamer to 
be named the “Albatross” for the use of the Fish 
Commission in deep sea researches was authorized by 
Congress. 
Clarence King, who had served a year as Director, 
organizing the United States Geological Survey, did not 
wish to retain the position, and joined with Baird in 
recommending as his successor Major J. W. Powell, who 
was confirmed by the Senate March 18th. 
The house next door to Professor Baird’s residence, 
built by J.O. Wilson for the use of the Fish Commission, 
was completed, to the great relief of the overcrowded 
clerks as well as the Professor’s family. Before leaving 
Washington for the summer work the Professor and Mr. 
Goode devised a reorganization of the Museum and Fish 
Commission forces, the previous arrangements having 
been a growth and more or less inconveniently intricate. 
After this the usual party started for Wood’s Hole, where 
the summer station was selected, and where Baird was 
already planning to locate a permanent seaside head- 
quarters for the work of the Commission. By the 15th 
of October they were again in Washington, where Baird 
was soon busily engaged upon his plans for introducing 
and breeding for distribution the best varieties of the 
carp of Europe. Toward the end of January Mr. H. E. 
Rockwell, long the confidential clerk and stenographer of 
Professor Baird, was taken seriously ill and died on the 
22nd. Other fatalities followed. Rev. Sewall Cutting 
passed away February 7th, and in March the widow of 
Professor Henry was laid beside the body of her husband. 
June brought the news of the death from consumption 
of G. W. Hawes, the curator of Geology in the National 
