1878.] 43 (Gray. 
that the noble bequest of Smithson “for the increase and dif- 
fusion of knowledge among men” was thereby rescued from 
waste and misappropriation 5 its capital not only preserved 
but augmented, and its legitimate uses developed and fixed, 
after great opposition, in a manner which now commands 
general approval. When it is remembered that the Act of 
Congress which established the Institution permitted, if it 
did not invite, the devotion of the whole income of Smith- 
son’s bequest to what may justly be termed local uses, and 
when the early history of the institution comes to be written, 
it will be understood — Dr. Gray insisted —that the great 
benefits which the scientific world at large, and science in 
America especially, are receiving from it, are mainly owing to 
the practical wisdom, the catholic spirit, the just conception 
of the founder’s intent, and the indomitable perseverance of 
its first Secretary and Manager. Prof. Henry’s disinterested- 
ness in accepting this position, to the detriment, and as it 
proved almost entire interruption, of his career as an investi- 
gator, was referred to, along with the fact that he seems 
to have anticipated this consequence, having remarked as he 
was leaving Princeton, that he was “sacrificing reputation 
to fame.” 
The development in this new position of rare talent as an 
administrator and in the conduct of affairs, was spoken of, as 
also the directly practical turn which was given to all his 
later researches by the duties he was called upon to perform 
as a trusted scientific adviser to more than one department 
of the Government, and particularly to the Light-house 
Board, in which he was for many years chairman of the com- 
mittee on experiments, and during the later years President. 
In one line of investigations upon lighting he is said to have 
saved some hundred thousand dollars to the government ; 
aud his last illness is said to have supervened upon exposure 
on the sea-coast while engaged in those researches upon the 
propagation of sound and the perfecting of acoustic signals, 
