"The mechanical power exerted by animals is due to the passage of
organized matter in the stomach, from an unstable to a stable
equilibrium; or, as it were, from the combustion of the food. It
therefore follows that animal power is referable to the same source as
that from the combustion of fuel--namely, developed power of the sun's
beams. But, according to this view, what is vitality? It is that
mysterious principle--not mechanical power--which determines the form
and arranges the atoms of organized matter, employing for this purpose
the power which is derived from the food....
"Suppose a vegetable organism impregnated with a germ (a potato, for
instance) is planted below the surface of the ground, in damp soil,
under a temperature sufficient for vegetation. If we examine it from
time to time, we find it sending down rootlets into the earth, and stems
and leaves upward into the air. After the leaves have been fully
expanded we shall find the tuber entirely exhausted, nothing but a skin
remaining. The same effect will take place if the potato be placed in a
warm cellar; it will continue to grow until all the starch and gluten
are exhausted, when it will cease to increase. If, however, we now place
it in the light, it will commence to grow again, and increase in size
and weight. If we weigh the potato previous to the experiment, and the
plant after it has ceased to grow in the dark, we shall find that the
weight of the latter is a little more than half of the original tuber.
The question then is, what has become of the material which filled the
sac of the potato? The answer is, one part has run down into carbonic
acid and water, and in this running down has evolved the power to build
up the other part into the new plant. After the leaves have been formed
and the plant exposed to the light of the sun, the developed power of
its rays decomposes the carbonic acid of the atmosphere, and thus
furnishes the pabulum and the power necessary to the further development
of the organization.
"The same is the case with wheat, and all other grains that are
germinated in the earth. Besides the germ of the future plant, there is
stored away, around the germ, the starch and gluten to furnish the power
necessary to its development, and also the food to build it up, until it
reaches the surface of the earth and can draw the sources of its future
growth from the power of the sunbeam. In the case of fungi and other
plants that grow in the dark, they derive the power and the pabulum from
surrounding vegetable matter in process of decay, or in that of evolving
power."...
"What then is the office of vitality? We say that it is analogous to
that of the engineer who directs the power of the steam-engine in the
execution of its work."
"If he had published in 1844, with some fulness, as he then wrought
them out," says Professor Gray, "his conception and his attractive
illustrations of the sources, transformation, and equivalence of
mechanical power, and given them fitting publicity, Henry's name would
have been prominent among the pioneers and founders of the modern
doctrine of the conservation of energy."
Henry always defined science as the "knowledge of natural law," and law
as the "will of God." He found all things, even the storms, under the
"control of laws--fixed, immutable, and eternal," and rejoiced in
believing that "a Supreme Intelligence who knows no change" governs all.
For him there was never any conflict between science and religion.
In February, 1837, Henry went to Europe, accompanied by Prof. Alexander
D. Bache, at the head of the United States Coast Survey for eighteen
years. He became the friend of Faraday; of Wheatstone, then Professor of
Experimental Philosophy in King's College, who was engaged in developing
his system of the needle telegraph; of Arago, Gay-Lussac, and other
noted men. "At King's College," says Prof. Alfred M. Mayer, "Faraday,
Wheatstone, Daniell, and Henry had met to try and evolve the electric
spark from the thermopile. Each in turn attempted it and failed. Then
came Henry's turn. He succeeded, calling in the aid of his discovery of
the effect of a long interpolar wire wrapped around a piece of soft
iron. Faraday became as wild as a boy, and, jumping up, shouted:
'Hurrah for the Yankee experiment!'" "It is not generally known or
appreciated," says Professor Mayer, "that Henry and Faraday
independently discovered the means of producing the electric current and
the electric spark from a magnet.... Henry cannot be placed on record as
the _first_ discoverer of the magneto-electric current, but it _can_ be
claimed that he stands alone as its _second_ independent discoverer."
Both James D. Forbes of Edinburgh and Henry obtained the spark, but were
anticipated by Faraday.
Henry spoke before the various scientific societies. He was no longer
the apprentice to a watch-maker, or the leader of private theatricals,
but a distinguished scholar. By his own will and energy he had attained
to this enviable position.
Meantime a man of science, in England, had thought out a great project
for the benefit of his fellow-men. James Smithson, a wealthy English
chemist, a Fellow of the Royal Society, unmarried, died in 1829. He left
his property, over five hundred and forty thousand dollars, after the
death of his nephew, provided that he died childless, "to the United
States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the
Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion
of knowledge among men." The nephew died six years later, unmarried.
This was indeed a wonderful gift,--and from a stranger! Difficulties at
once presented themselves. How could the property be used "for the
increase and diffusion of knowledge among men"? "For ten years," says
Garfield, "Congress wrestled with those nine words of Smithson, and
could not handle them. Some political philosophers of that period held
that we had no constitutional authority to accept the gift at all, and
proposed to send it back to England. Every conceivable proposition was
made."
John Quincy Adams desired a great astronomical observatory. One person
wished an agricultural school; another, a college for women; another,
that the funds should be devoted to meteorological observations all over
the Union. Finally, a board of regents was appointed, with power to
choose a suitable person as secretary.
He must be a learned man, a wise financier, with good judgment and
pleasant manners. Professor Henry fulfilled all the conditions. He was
admired for his learning; in finance he was wise, as thirty years have
proved, the institute with its endowment now being valued at one and a
half million dollars; his kindly manner made him accessible, willing to
listen to any one who hoped or believed he had discovered something in
the line of knowledge. A man who can be harsh or cold to an ignorant
person, or indeed to anybody, does not deserve to hold any public
position. With natural quickness of temper in early life, he had gained
remarkable self-control. Like Baron Cuvier, he had no tolerance for
sarcasm or "practical jokes." Henry was unanimously chosen, entering
upon his duties December 3, 1846. He had a definite plan of the work
which ought to be done, and "after due deliberation it received the
almost unanimous approval of the scientific world."
He believed that the money should be used in original scientific work;
by helping men to publish the results of such work; to aid in varied
explorations; to send scientific publications all over the world. The
institution is now the principal agent of scientific and literary
communication between the old world and the new. The number of foreign
institutions and correspondents receiving the Smithsonian publications
exceeds two thousand, scattered from New Zealand and India to Yokohama,
in Japan, and Cape Town, in Southern Africa. The weight of matter sent
abroad for ten years, ending 1877, was ninety-nine thousand pounds.
Among the first subjects taken up by the institution for investigation
was that of American archaeology, an attempt to ascertain the industrial,
social, and intellectual character of the earliest races on our
continent. The first publication of "Smithsonian Contributions" was a
work on the mounds and earthworks found in the Mississippi valley, a
most fascinating study.
The Smithsonian, "first in the world, organized a comprehensive system
of telegraphic meteorology, and has thus given first to Europe and Asia,
and now to the United States, that most beneficent national application
of modern science--the storm warnings."
So much of value has been gathered by government surveys and by
voluntary contribution that the institution has sent duplicates to
various societies of specimens in geology, mineralogy, botany, zooelogy,
and archaeology, while it has remaining, "boxed up, varieties of art and
nature" more than enough to twice fill the halls and galleries of the
building.
The work of Professor Henry grew more and more onerous, but he seemed to
leave nothing undone. For many years he served gratuitously as chairman
of the Lighthouse Board. When a substitute was needed for sperm oil,
after almost numberless experiments, he showed that lard oil is the best
illuminant, thereby saving the country over one hundred thousand dollars
yearly, since 1865.
During the last twelve years of his life, he devoted much time to our
system of coast fog-signals, making "contributions to the science of
acoustics, unquestionably the most important of the century."
Observations were made, among other places, at Block Island and Point
Judith. The distance between these fog-horns is seventeen miles, and the
sound of one can be distinctly heard at the other when the air is quiet
and homogeneous; but if the wind blows from one towards the other, the
listener at the station from which the wind blows is unable to hear the
other horn.
While at work in the Lighthouse Depot, in Staten Island, December, 1877,
Henry's right hand became in a paralytic condition. This foretold that
the end was near. He died at noon, May 13, 1878, asking, with his latest
breath, which way the wind came, as though still thinking how to save
human lives in a fog at sea. He was buried May 16, at Rock Creek
Cemetery, near Georgetown, D. C. He was ready when death came. Two weeks
before, he said to a friend: "I may die at any moment. I would like to
live long enough to complete some things I have undertaken, but I am
content to go. I have had a happy life, and I hope I have been able to
do some good."
Several times during his connection with the Smithsonian Institution he
was offered more lucrative positions, but he remained where he believed
he could be most useful. He was called to the professorship of chemistry
in the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania, with double
the salary of his secretaryship; but he declined. He was urged also to
take the presidency of the college at Princeton. John C. Calhoun desired
him to accept a professorship in the University of Virginia, as there
were so many difficulties in connection with the secretaryship. Henry
declined, saying that "his honor was committed to the institution."
Calhoun grasped his hand, exclaiming, "Professor Henry, you are a man
after my own heart."
He seemed to have no time to accumulate money. Fortunately, a fund of
forty thousand dollars has been raised by friends, the income of which
goes to his family during life, and afterwards to the National Academy
of Sciences, to be devoted to original research.
In character he was above reproach. He said, "I think that immorality
and great mental power exercised in the discovery of scientific truths
are incompatible with each other; and that more error is introduced from
defect in moral sense than from want of intellectual capacity."
He loved nature. "A life devoted exclusively to the study of a single
insect," he said, "is not spent in vain. No animal, however
insignificant, is isolated; it forms a part of the great system of
nature, and is governed by the same general laws which control the most
prominent beings of the organic world." In 1870, when gazing upon the
Aar glacier, from the Rhone valley, he exclaimed to his daughter, while
the tears coursed down his cheeks: "This is a place to die in. We should
go no further." A really great man is never afraid to show that he has a
tender heart.
He loved his home. Out from it, in his early married life, two children
went by death, and later, an only son in his early manhood. Three
daughters were left him. One of them records in her diary: "Had father
with us all the evening. I modelled his profile in clay, while he read
'Thomson's Seasons' to us. In the earlier part of the evening he seemed
restless and depressed, but the influence of the poet drove away the
cloud, and then an expression of almost childlike sweetness rested upon
his lips, singularly in contrast, yet beautifully in harmony, with, the
intellect of the brow above."
Again she writes: "We were all up until a late hour, reading poetry with
father and mother, father being the reader. He attempted 'Cowper's
Grave,' by Mrs. Browning, but was too tender-hearted to finish the
reading of it. We then laughed over the 'Address to the Mummy,' soared
to heaven with Shelley's 'Skylark,' roamed the forest with Bryant,
culled flowers from other poetical fields, and ended with 'Tam
O'Shanter.' I took for my task to recite a part of the latter from
memory, while father corrected, as if he were 'playing schoolmaster.'"
He was orderly and painstaking in his work, deciding with great caution.
Prof. Asa Gray tells a story of his boyhood which well illustrates this.
"It goes back to the time when he was first allowed to have a pair of
boots, and to choose for himself the style of them. He was living with
his grandmother, in the country, and the village Crispin could offer no
great choice of patterns; indeed, it was narrowed down to the
alternative of round toes or square. Daily the boy visited the shop and
pondered the alternatives, even while the manufacture was going on,
until, at length, the shoemaker, who could brook no more delay, took the
dilemma by both horns, and produced the most remarkable pair of boots
the wearer ever had; one boot round-toed, the other square-toed.... He
probably never again postponed decision till it was too late to choose."
A single incident illustrates the kindness of the man, who was always
called the "model of a Christian gentleman." "Early in the war, in the
autumn of 1861, a caller at the presidential mansion, very anxious to
see the chief magistrate of the nation, was informed that he could not
then be seen, being engaged in an important private consultation. The
caller, not to be repulsed, wrote on a piece of paper that he must see
Mr. Lincoln personally, on a matter of vital and pressing importance to
the public welfare. This, of course, secured his admission to the
presence of Mr. Lincoln, who was sitting with a middle-aged gentleman.
Observing the hesitancy of the visitor, the President told him he might
speak freely, as only a friend was present.
"Whereupon the visitor announced that for several evenings past he had
observed a light exhibited on the highest of the Smithsonian towers, for
a few minutes, about nine o'clock, with mysterious movements, which, he
felt satisfied, were designed as signals to the rebels encamped on
Munson's Hill, in Virginia. Having gravely listened to this information
with raised eyebrows, but a subdued twinkle of the eye, the President
turned to his companion, saying, 'What do you think of that, Professor
Henry?'
"Rising with a smile, the person addressed replied that, from the time
mentioned, he presumed the mysterious light shone from the lantern of
an attendant who was required at nine o'clock each evening to observe
and record the indications of the meteorological instruments placed on
the tower. The painful confusion of the officious informant at once
appealed to Henry's sensibility, and, quite unmindful of the President,
he approached the visitor, offering his hand, and with a courteous
regard counselled him never to be abashed at the issue of a
conscientious discharge of duty, and never to let the fear of ridicule
interfere with its faithful execution."
Henry had learned how to triumph over the misfortunes of life. In 1865,
the Smithsonian building was partially burned, with nearly one hundred
thousand letters, his notes of original research for thirty years, the
annual report in manuscript, ready for the press, a valuable library,
etc.
"A few years ago," he said, "such a calamity would have paralyzed me for
future efforts, but in my present view of life I take it as the
dispensation of a kind and wise Providence, and trust that it will work
to my spiritual advantage."
A bronze statue of Joseph Henry, by W. W. Story, costing fifteen
thousand dollars, was unveiled in the grounds of the Smithsonian
Institution, April 19, 1883. Ten thousand people were assembled to
witness the ceremonies. Noah Porter, ex-president of Yale College,
delivered the oration. There it will tell the story of a self-made
man--of whom Garfield said: "Remembering his great career as a man of
science, as a man who served his government with singular ability and
faithfulness, who was loved and venerated by every circle, who blessed
with the light of his friendship the worthiest and the best, whose life
added new lustre to the glory of the human race, we shall be most
fortunate if ever in the future we see his like again."
Prof. Joseph Henry was succeeded by Prof. Spencer F. Baird as secretary
of the Smithsonian Institution. He died August 19, 1887, and Prof. S. P.
Langley was called to the position, accepting the office November 18,
1887. The mantle of Henry has fallen upon a worthy successor; a scholar
who has given us, among other works, the "New Astronomy," whose beauty
of diction, breadth of knowledge, and exquisite illustrations are so
well remembered, as it appeared first in the pages of the Century
Magazine.