I877-] 



SCIENTIFIC WORK. 



353 



" He wrote more largely, and lectured more frequently on 

 social and sanitary questions, to which, as more urgent matters 

 in the interest of humanity, he was always willing to give the 

 precedence over his more purely scientific pursuits. A gentle- 

 man prominent in the municipal affairs of Montreal remarked 

 lately that no one could fully estimate the amount of influence 

 which he exercised, or the loss sustained by his removal. It 

 was the same in his scientific specialties, in which all workers 

 on this side of the Atlantic deeply lament his loss. But much 

 of the good he did will live after him, in the exertions of others 

 stimulated by his influence, and by the example which he set 

 of a pure and useful love of man and of nature, hallowed by 

 deep religious feeling." 



In June (1877) Dr. Henry wrote to Mrs. P. P. Carpenter, 

 expressing his profound sorrow at the death of one who had 

 devoted his life so efficiently to the welfare of his fellow-men ; 

 and mentioning that Mr. W. H. Dall, who would visit Montreal 

 to receive what belonged to the Smithsonian Institution, was 

 well qualified to complete the work on Chitons. " We shall 

 publish it as soon as it is finished, and as it will be distributed 

 to all parts of the world, it will (with your husband's other 

 works) constitute a monument more acceptable to him than 

 one of bronze or marble." Mr. Dall, who had long been 

 Philip's friend and co-worker, wrote to me that it was " the 

 most valuable scientific treatise on the subject in existence, and 

 the most important work of Dr. Philip's life." Unfortunately, 

 while the portions relating to the classification of the Chitons is 

 mostly in long-hand, and nearly ready for printing, there is a 

 great amount of details relating to the several species, which is 

 in a shorthand not known in Washington. " In view of the 

 uncertainty of human affairs, it does seem as if it was almost 

 ' tempting Providence ' to lock up in hieroglyphics the results 

 of so many years of labour and research. Professor C. Adams, 

 of Amherst [see p. 201] left a large mass of papers on scientific 

 subjects in a similar state, all of which was a complete loss to 

 science and himself: just so much devoted energy absolutely 

 wasted, so far as the rest of the world is concerned." The 



