members of the Society and of the Council with whom I have talked to make the next meeting a Western meeting; the feeling being that we are localizing our Society too much by having so many meetings at the East, and it is probable that a favorable inclination will be formed to meet in Cleveland in the Spring.

Mr. Holloway.-I would say on behalf of the Western members that such a plan would be satisfactory to them.

A paper by Mr. Alfred Colin on " Technical Schools for Artisans " was read by the Secretary, and elicted no discussion.

After a paper by Mr. Norman Wheeler, entitled "Launching Ships Side-On," was read by title, the meeting adjourned, subject to the call of the President and Council.

After adjournment, the members repaired to the Hoffman House to inspect the effect of electric light on paintings, and were thence escorted to the station of the U. S. Electric Lighting Co., using the Weston Dynamos, and to the station of the Brush Illuminating Co. It had been planned to visit also the Edison station, but on account of the lateness of the hour, the plan was not carried out.

ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY—A MEMORIAL

ADDRESS

BY

R. W. RAYMOND, PH. D., NEW YORK CITY.

MR. PRESIDENT, GENTLEMEN OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS, THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS, AND THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF MINING ENGINEERS; LADIES AND GENTLEMEN :

The memorial session, in Washington, at which I was first designated for the duty of this evening, was chiefly devoted to the multiform expression of sorrow. From a score of speakers, who had known Mr. Holley in various stages of his career, came tributes of affection, honorable alike to him and to them. Among them all, none uttered words more heartfelt and impressive than did the venerable Ashbel Welch, who, by reason of official position, as well as years and character, would doubtless have been called to preside over this meeting, had not a more potent message summoned him meanwhile to a higher seat. Nestor mourned over Achilles, slain in the midst of the battle; and now Nestor, too, from the peaceful life of an honored old age, has passed away.

But neither this more recent, nor that earlier, grief is the theme of the present hour. However inadequate to the task the orator of to-night may prove, it was fitting that some one, waiting until the first outburst of emotion had died away, should attempt a calmreview of the life and works of Alexander Lyman Holley; that Friendship, bewailing her loss, should give way to History, count ing her gain; that the achievements of the departed should be recognized and valued, and his example studied. Was he greatly successful? How did he win success? How much of it was born with him; how much thrust upon him; how much earned by him? And if his own hands wrought out his fame, is there any thing in the method of his preparation and practice that others might imitate with profit?

Mr. Holley was born at Lakeville, in Salisbury, Coun., on the 20th of July, 1832. His father, Alexander H. Holley, subsequently Governor of that State, was a native of the same village. His

mother, whose maiden name was Jane M. Lyman, was one of the Lymans of Goshen. The experts in New England genealogies will not need to be told that, on both sides, he came of a good stock-such as, by a combination of enterprise, intelligence, and high principle, has made New England great. The mother could, indeed, bestow upon her son nothing more than the legacy of inherited character, for she died a few weeks after his birth. But her place was supplied by the second marriage of his father, three years later, to Miss Marcia Coffing, whose affection, bestowed freely upon her stepson through twenty years, was as freely returned by him. Their correspondence, some of which has been preserved, shows that their personal intercourse was intimate, and that this excellent lady, though burdened with the cares of a large and hospitable household, never forgot to be a true mother to this son of her adoption, as well as to the children born of her. Νο doubt he was much indebted for noble impulses and principles to the influence of this devoted woman.

For two or three years of his early boyhood he attended the district school near his father's house, and was then advanced to the Academy, to which he walked, a little more than a mile and a half, every day, winter and summer. In later life, he was accustomed to allude to this regular exercise as having laid the foundation of the fine constitution which enabled him, for so many years, to work so hard and yet so easily.

From the Academy in Salisbury he went to another, under the care of Mr. Simeon Hart, at Farmington, Conn., and, after a year or more, to Williams Academy, then directed by Mr. E. W. B. Canning, at Stockbridge, Mass. From Stockbridge he went to Bridgeport, Conn., to prepare for Yale College, under Rev. Henry Jones. According to the dates and internal evidence of his boy ish letters, the above order is not strictly correct. I find him at Stockbridge in 1846 and 1847, at Farmington in 1848, at Bridgeport in 1849, and back at Stockbridge in 1850. For our present purpose, the question is not important, except as it shows an early trait in his character--a restlessness, born of versatility and genius, which under less judicious training might have wasted his life.

Ample and interesting materials tempt me to more detailed description of his boyhood. But I must be content to mention, and briefly illustrate, its leading characteristics. First among these must be named the normal, healthy physical activity and the overflow of mirth and high spirits which made him a leader in boyish

sports and adventures. Where the others climbed with ostentatious courage up to the belfry of the academy, he, at the first trial, mounted above it and stood on the gilded ball, which no foot had pressed before. He hangs over precipices, takes long foot-journeys, and revels in the mere consciousness of life and strength. Strikingly handsome as well as athletic, he is naturally a leader among his comrades. In all sorts of home amusements, too, his merry ingenuity makes him invaluable. Many of these, such as charades and rhyming games, were intellectual; others were mere pranks— such as the match between him and a friend, "who could eat the most pancakes," of which the kitchen was the scene, the cook being coaxed into complicity, and the dog, wagging his tail behind the combatants, received from each as many segments as could be surreptitiously bestowed without the knowledge of the other; or the occasion when, having constructed a rustic bridge over the brook, Holley forced the entire family to march over it in solemn procession, while he sat by, fantastically dressed as a troubadour, and played the guitar.

Let no one despise this light-hearted gayety. It was the early form of that courage which carried him afterward through many struggles and even defeats, with an air of victory that was in itself the promise of victory to come.

To this quality must be added a keen observation and an inborn talent for drawing. These were specially, but not wholly, directed toward machinery, in which he took the liveliest interest. His father having established the well-known knife manufactury at Lakeville, the boy made himself familiar with all the machinery, and during his youth made innumerable proposals of improvement -some of which, being really good, were adopted, while others— no doubt the greater number-were crude and impracticable. When but nine years old, he accompanied his father as far as Niagara, where he was left for a few days with an uncle who was connected with works employing machinery. During the father's absence, Alexander was repeatedly missed by his uncle, who always found him on such occasions in some place where there was a steam-engine, and who long preserved, as a memento of the visit, a little bundle of papers on which the boy of nine had made drawings of the different machines he had thus studied. In a letter written at about the age of fourteen, he describes an excursion with his schoolmates to the old Bristol copper mine, six miles from Farmington, and says:

"The steam-engine attracted considerable of my attention, of course. It was splendidly made and fitted, and went so still that one would hardly know that it was in the room. Power, twenty-horse. Mr. S. Hart [his teacher] told the gentleman that showed us around that he would have me draw a plan of the engine from memory, which I have done, and which Mr. H. is much pleased with. He says he is going to send it to the aforesaid gentleman at Bristol."

His letters overflow with revelations of his passionate interest in machinery, and particularly in locomotives. In one of them, written after returning to school from vacation, he indulges in some of the truly good sentiments with which boys are wont to please parents, but which are in this case redeemed from platitude by this picturesque touch :

It seems as if I should dive and dig and plow, and if that did not succeed, back out and plow again, in my studies, as faithfully as the locomotive old 'Connecticut' did, this morning in the drifts, with seven long cars, all alone."

In another letter, he speaks of a locomotive which has been wrecked on the Housatonic road; calls it by name, as an acquaintance; says he has walked twice (a number of miles) to the place where it lies at the bottom of a steep embankment ; introduces a pen-and-ink sketch of the scene, locomotive and all ; to show how difficult will be the return of the engine to the track; and concludes, "I guess the H. R. R. Co. will not make money by this operation."

He frequently declares his determination to master the science of machinery, and I find one sentence, in a letter written at fifteen, which seems to be an unconscious prophecy. He writes:

"I have seen, in a newspaper, an account of a man in England who makes steel that will cut iron or any other hard substance without dulling it. I should like to hire out to that man for a year or so. X * * I wish I could learn the art of making steel."

Twelve years later, there was a man in England by the name of Bessemer, of whom he took, in this art, lessons that were not wasted!

In another letter, written from Stockbridge, he says:

"I have been devoting all my leisure time, for nearly two weeks, to making sectional and perspective views of the internal works, machinery, steam-works, etc.. of the most improved locomotive engines, showing how the steam is made, applied, and cut off at half-stroke or not (a recent improvement); how the engine is worked every way, in some seventeen different pictures, with explanations filling some eight or ten pages. Mr. Canning is to have them framed and hung up in the Academy. I have explained them in such a manner that any one can understand them, and I really hope that people will look at them, for there is more ignorance among scientific and educated men on this point than