the City Hall and a public dinner at Delmonico's. The city of Philadelphia gave him a public reception, and the city of Washington a military escort and a public reception. He was elected a member of the National Geographic Society of the United States; an honorary member of the Royal Swedish Society of Anthropology and Geography, and a member of the Geographic Society of Philadelphia. The Institution of Naval Architects of Great Britain made him an honorary member—a rare distinction—and in 1896 Stevens Institute of Technology conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Engineering. He became a comrade of the Grand Army of the Republic, a member of the Naval Order of the United States, and a companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States; and the Pennsylvania Commandery of that order caused a bust in bronze to be placed in the War Museum at Philadelphia, and a replica of this bust was presented to grammar school No. 3 of New York city in which forty years before he was a pupil. He was given the honorary degree of LL.D. by Georgetown university, that of Master of Science by Columbia university, New York, in 1899, and that of Sc.D. by the University of Pennsylvania in 1901. He was also made an honorary member of the American Society of Civil Engineers and of the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, and he closed his term as president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1899. He also served as vice-president of the Society of Naval Architects and Engineers of the United States.
He invented a torpedo and he designed the triple screw used in the Columbia and Minneapolis. In 1899-1901 he caused to be set adrift from the United States revenue cutter Bear in the Arctic ocean a number of casks marked in five languages hoping to determine the direction of the polar currents. One of these casks placed on ice-drift at Point Barrow, Alaska, latitude 71° 53' north and longitude 164° 50' west, September 13, 1899, drifted over 4,000 miles, probably passing very near the north pole, and was recovered on [the northeast coast of Iceland, June 7, 1905. He is the author of: "In the Lena Delta," a story of the voyage of the Jeannette to the Arctic ocean (1885) , and of over one hundred pamphlets and speeches.
Rear-Admiral Melville was married, December 15, 1864, to Henrietta B. Waldron. At her death she left four children, two of whom are living in 1906. He never identified himself with any political party or with any religious denomination, ethical society, or
