emy of Sciences, and were completed the year after his death in the 

 " Phanerogamia of Pacific North America," in Vol. 17 of the Report 

 of the United States Exploring Expedition. His contributions to 

 botany include more than forty titles, many of them volumes requiring 

 years of patient study; they throw a flood of light on the plants of 

 North America, and form a grand contribution to knowledge. His 

 collections, on which these researches are based, were annotated and 

 arranged by him with scrupulous care and exactness, and are treasured 

 as among the most important of all scientific material in America. 



JOSEPH HENRY. 



By Robert S. Woodward. 



This time, one hundred years ago, Joseph Henry, whose name and 

 fame we honor today, was a lad seven years of age. He was born at 

 Albany, New York, of Scotch parentage, his grand parents on both 

 sides having come from Scotland in the same ship to the Colony of New 

 York, in 1775. 



Doubtless he had himself in mind when in his mature years he 

 affirmed that "The future character of a child, and that of a man also, 

 is in most cases formed probably before the age of seven years." At 

 any rate, he found himself early, for at the age of sixteen he had deter- 

 mined to devote his life to the acquisition of knowledge. Thus he 

 became, in turn, student; teacher; civil engineer in the service of his 

 native State; professor of mathematics and natural philosophy in the 

 Albany Academy; professor of natural philosophy in the College of 

 New Jersey — now Princeton University — and a pioneer investigator 

 and discoverer of the first order before he was thirty-three years of age. 



His inventions and discoveries in electromagnetism especially are 

 of prime importance. They include the inventions of the electro- 

 magnetic telegraph and the electromagnetic engine and the discovery 

 of many of the recondite facts and principles of electromagnetic science. 



From the age of thirty-three, when he took up the work of his pro- 

 fessorship at Princeton, till the age of forty-seven, when he was called 

 to the post of Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, he pursued his 

 original investigations with untiring zeal and with consummate experi- 



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