Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/566

550 beginning until now there have been numerous private collections, deriving their materials, their literature, and, to a considerable extent, their enthusiasm from the Smithsonian Institution, and consequently in correspondence with its officers. The Smithsonian 'Instructions to Collectors,' which has passed through several large editions, as well as numerous circulars written with a similar purpose, were prepared by Prof. Baird in connection with this department of his work. As a result of this extensive work of organization, a large number of young men have been trained as collectors and observers, and not a few among them have become eminent in various departments of science. In addition to this extensive branch of his work, the assistant secretary had, from the start, the charge of certain departments of the routine work of the Institution; the system of international exchanges, for instance, which had ever been one of the leading objects of the Smithsonian Institution, was organized by him in its details." Major Powell, speaking of the comprehensiveness of his methods for enlisting co-operation in these enterprises, says: "When our army was distributed on the frontiers of the land, he everywhere enlisted our scholarly officers into the service of science, and he transformed the military post into a station of research, an Indian campaign into a scientific expedition. Scott, Marcy, McClellan, Thomas, and many other of the great generals of America, were students of natural history and collectors for Baird. When our navy cruised around our shores, its officers were inspired with that love of Nature which made every voyage of military duty a voyage of discovery in the realms of natural science." Explorations, railroad-surveys, and travels throughout the world, were thus utilized by him in the interests of science. The main duty of the assistant secretary, however, was the development of the natural-history collections. Prof. Baird had brought his private collection to form a nucleus around which the others should be gathered. The Institution was in the possession of a few boxes of minerals and plants; and the collections of the Wilkes Exploring Expedition were under the charge of the National Institute, to be ultimately, as was provided in the act of incorporation of the Smithsonian Institution, transferred to it. To the care of these collections, and the management of the National Museum which has grown up from them, Prof. Baird brought the methods of work which had been developed in his own experience at Carlisle; and these methods are substantially those on which the museum is organized and conducted to-day. His faithful attention to the arduous duties of his position here did not prevent his publishing a considerable number of elaborate original memoirs, among which were a catalogue of North American serpents, the "Mammals of North America," and three