13 
ant to see a great metropolitan city like this, casting aside for the 
moment the habihments of its industry, to lay the foundation of a 
Museum in which the dead past is to be luiked to the living present ; 
to be followed as we trust, at no distant day, by a repository of art, 
where the ages that have gone by may be kept in our remembrance, 
by gathering together the memorials of their achievements ; where 
the stately march' of Empires may be chronicled to some extent, by 
the exhibition of what they have done for social embellishment, and 
where the gorgeousness and profusion of Nature may be emulated by 
the creative genius of Art. 
I know no locality so suitable as this, for such a Museum of artistic 
treasure ; no locality in which Art has already done so much for Na- 
ture. Most of us remember when, but a few years ago, this whole 
district, which now forms the Central Park, was an unsightly and 
shapely mass— '•rudis tndigestaque moles." Now it is a very miracle 
of rural beauty, where the most unpromising and stubborn natural 
feature has been made to blend and harmonize with the general aspect 
of order and grace. 
But, ladies and gentlemen, I am forgetting that I only arose to 
apologise to you for sitting dowm again ; and if I go on, you may im- 
pute to me the common frailty which Horace ascribes to singers— 
that they can never be induced to sing when they are asked, and 
never stop when nobody wants to hear them. But I cannot sit down 
without saying, it is appropriate that the foundation of this Cosmopol- 
itan Museum should be kid by the foremost man of our time, who m 
the field did so much by his calm, unconquerable and unconscious 
valor, to save the life of the nation, and who in the Cabmet stands 
forth as its fearless champion, to maintain its honor and its plighted 
faith. 
ADDRESS OF PROF. JOSEPH HENRY. 
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 
My address will have one element which I doubt not will elicit 
your approbation. I was requested to limit it to ten m.nute.s, and 
therefore it will of necessity have the merit especially appreciated on 
