Page:Men of Mark in America vol 1.djvu/211

Rh Mr. Bell's scientific career has brought him many honors. In 1880 he was awarded the Volta prize of §10,000 by the French government, which he devoted to founding the Volta Laboratory, in Washington, as a bureau of research and information on all matters relative to the deaf and dumb. In 1882 France also decorated him with the ribbon of her Legion of Honor. He is president of the National Geographic Society; regent of the Smithsonian Institution; a trustee of the George Washington university; member of the National Academy of Science, and other scientific organizations. Harvard university conferred upon him the degree of LL.D., Illinois college the same degree in 1896, and Amherst college in 1901. Wurtzburg university gave him the degree of Ph.D., and he was a medalist of the London Society of Fine Arts in 1902.

Personally Dr. Bell is a benevolent, reserved, contemplative man, thoroughly engrossed in his scientific work. In appearance he is rather of an Italian than an English or Scotch type, his hair now whitened but formerly jet black. His manner is earnest and convincing. He is an enthusiast in his work, and, in his private laboratories, at Washington and at Badeck, Nova Scotia, at which latter place he has a large and luxurious summer home, he frequently works all night in pursuit of some missing link in his inventive mechanism, or in following out some illuminating line of thought. By way of recreation he gives considerable attention to sheep husbandry, and has conducted a number of experiments in hybridization and cross-breeding with a view to making the offspring more prolific. A genius, a scientific dreamer, yet an indefatigable worker, he has made his way to affluence and distinction.

He married in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1877, Mabel Gardiner Hubbard, daughter of the late Judge Gardiner Green Hubbard of Washington, District of Columbia.