My whole attention exclusive of my duties
to the College, was devoted to original scientific
investigations, and I left to others what I considered in a
scientific view of subordinate importance--the application of my
discoveries to useful purposes in the arts. Besides this I
partook of the feeling common to men of science, which
disinclines them to secure to themselves the advantages of their
discoveries by a patent."
Then, too, his talents were soon turned to a wider field. The
bequest of James Smithson, that farsighted Englishman, who left
his fortune to the United States to found "the Smithsonian
Institution, for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among
men," was responsible for the diffusion of Henry's activities.
The Smithsonian Institution was founded at Washington in 1846,
and Henry was fittingly chosen its Secretary, that is, its chief
executive officer. And from that time until his death in 1878,
over thirty years, he devoted himself to science in general.
He studied terrestrial magnetism and building materials. He
reduced meteorology to a science, collecting reports by
telegraph, made the first weather map, and issued forecasts of
the weather based upon definite knowledge rather than upon signs.
He became a member of the Lighthouse Board in 1852 and was the
head after 1871.
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