uality in the head of a great department which is quite distinct
from sprightliness, and that is wisdom. This he possessed in the
highest degree. The impress which he made on our fiscal system was
not the product of what looked like energetic personal action, but
of a careful study of the prevailing conditions of public opinion,
and of the means at his disposal for keeping the movement of things
in the right direction. His policy was what is sometimes claimed,
and correctly, I believe, to embody the highest administrative wisdom:
that of doing nothing himself that he could get others to do for him.
In this way all his energies could be devoted to his proper work,
that of getting the best men in office, and of devising measures
from time to time calculated to carry the government along the lines
which he judged to be best for the public interests.

The name of another attendant at the meetings of the club has from
time to time excited interest because of its connection with a
fundamental principle of evolutionary astronomy. This principle,
which looks paradoxical enough, is that up to a certain stage,
as a star loses heat by radiation into space, its temperature
becomes higher. It is now known as Lane's Law. Some curiosity
as to its origin, as well as the personality of its author, has
sometimes been expressed. As the story has never been printed,
I ask leave to tell it.

Among the attendants at the meetings of the Scientific Club was
an odd-looking and odd-mannered little man, rather intellectual in
appearance, who listened attentively to what others said, but who,
so far as I noticed, never said a word himself. Up to the time
of which I am speaking, I did not even know his name, as there was
nothing but his oddity to excite any interest in him.

One evening about the year 1867, the club met, as it not
infrequently did, at the home of Mr. McCulloch. After the
meeting Mr. W. B. Taylor, afterward connected with the Smithsonian
Institution in an editorial capacity, accompanied by the little man,
set out to walk to his home, which I believe was somewhere near the
Smithsonian grounds. At any rate, I joined them in their walk,
which led through these grounds. A few days previous there had
appeared in the "Reader," an English weekly periodical having a
scientific character, an article describing a new theory of the sun.
The view maintained was that the sun was not a molten liquid, as had
generally been supposed