exhibits less of interest than the subsequent ones. Yet much was done towards making generally known what the objects proposed really were.

The second meeting was held in Cambridge during August, 1849. The venerable shades of Harvard swarmed with philosophers, and new voices resounded within her time-honored walls. A full attendance, numerous communications of interest and importance, many social courtesies, and a harmony which knew no check, made a tout ensemble held by many in delightful memory.

Next was appointed and held a semiannual meeting at Charleston in March, 1850. Here several elaborate papers on geological and botanical subjects were presented, and the proceedings exhibited much variety. Unfortunately a gleam of middle-age intolerance dared to intrude and to foment some animosity under the cloak of religion. But we trust that the time is past when science need fear boldly to speak out its truths, however unwelcome or provocative of the odium theologicum. We hope the drama of Galileo will under all forms and disguises be hereafter hissed from the stage.

The next meeting was held for a week during the latter portion of August, 1850, at New Haven. The quiet and beautiful city of elms extended a cordial greeting to the scientific soldiers who responded at the yearly roll call. The communications read were numerous and of marked interest, especially in the department of general physics. A semi-annual meeting was then appointed and in due time held at Cincinnati, during the second week of May, 1851; at which communications geological subjects predominated. total number of papers was about one half of that at New Haven. The most striking incident was the triumph of Prof. Mitchell's method of recording astronomical observations.

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The succeeding annual meeting was held at Albany, and was probably the most interesting of the series. The number of members in attendance (doubtless exceeding 300), the variety, interest, and scope of the papers presented (being 134 in number), and the indefatigable hospitality of the Albanians, made up a week of continuous mental vitality and social ovation. The subdivision into sections was more complete than it had been before, and each section had full occupation.

It was there resolved to accept the invitation by the corporation of Cleveland to hold the next meeting in that city, commencing on the third Wednesday of August, 1852. The prevalence of cholera and other diseases in the West just prior

to this date, induced the standing committee to postpone the proposed meeting, so that no assembling of the association occurred until that which is just concluded. After fully canvassing the convenience of all concerned, it was decided to meet in Cleveland for the week following, July 28, 1853. This meeting lasted five working days, and progressed with increasing interest, the number of papers being over eighty. A very decided preponderance of physical subjects was found to prevail, the departments of natural history and geology not being as strongly represented as usual. The non-attend

ance of Prof. Agassiz, the Rogerses, Dana, Hitchcock, Foster, and other leading spirits, who always have ample contributions, was a deficiency seriously felt, and gave a too partial character to this meeting, which was much regretted. We trust that this is not to be construed into a lack of interest or of fealty on the part of the geologists and naturalists, and we hope that this association, their own fosterchild, is not through their defection to become lop-sided and incomplete. That some disaffection exists we are well aware, but we would say in all earnestness, let not this be the means of dissevering this natural unit; rather let the next meeting be entered into with the hearty concurrence of all, and with the thorough resolution to waive all discordant memories, and at least to try again fairly to execute the fundamental idea of this association. We believe such an effort will be made, and that it will fully succeed. The Cleveland meeting came at a time inconvenient for many, nor was the place central; which, with the loss of interest consequent on the two years interval, will explain the inferiority of this meeting to that held in Albany, without supposing any positive secession. Washington, the next point of meeting, is a place where all sections of the association should array their full strength and present the complete federation of the sciences in a representative congress. The last Wednesday in April, the soft, delightful month of flowers and foliage, is the appointed day of convocation. With Congress in session, and nature in gala array, with a certainty of welcome and hospitality, with our capitol lions to be seen and our capitol orators to be heard and to hear, there would seem to be enough to insure a full and fruitbearing meeting.

The election of officers at the Cleveland meeting resulted in the choice of Professor Dana, for President; Professor J. Lawrence Smith, for General Secretary; Professor Joseph Lovering, of Cambridge, for Permanent Secretary, and Dr. Elwyn, for

Treasurer. These officers elect will enter on their duties at the next meeting.

The six volumes of proceedings of this association at the six meetings first held, exhibit a rich aggregate of research and suggestion covering a large part of the scientific specialities which have been cultivated among us. It is indeed lamentable that so large a portion of the most important communications made, are not included in the proceedings, being, through the delays and neglect of their authors, entered as (( not received." It is also matter of much regret, if not of complaint, that the presidents, with the exception of Professor Bache (who is the most occupied of all), have not furnished their annual addresses for these volumes. To us it seems incumbent on the president to make his retiring address an elaborate production, in which the general progress of science during the year shall be reviewed; or in which some large and positive subject of scientific interest and importance shall be thoroughly, and yet popularly treated. For instance, we would have liked to have heard from Professor Agassiz a summary of what has been done, and what is still desired, in the natural history of North America. Or still better would we have relished from this highest source, a discourse on the intellectual element in organic structure. Why, too, should not Professor Pierce unfold a year hence, how America needs a real university, and what such a university should do if organized. Some positive subject should be chosen, or else the annual addresses should be a systematic exposé of what has been done during the year, as it usually has been made by the British association presidents.

We are happy to record the generous action of Charleston, Cincinnati, Albany, and Cleveland, in assuming the expenses of publishing their respective volumes of proceedings. The citizens or the corporations have in these instances taken on themselves the burden of publication; which generosity is alike an honor to them and to the association. This body has no source of income, except the fees of members, amounting only to $2 per annum, or $3 with the annual volume of Proceedings; (just changed to $1 fee, and Proceedings at cost). The liberality it has experienced is thus very fortunate, especially when we remember that the possession both of wealth and of philosophic lore, rarely falls to the lot of the same individual. With all its utilitarian biases in these days, science rarely enriches the coffers of its cultivators, so that truly original researches are still well-nigh as unremunerated as in the

wretched days of patrons. The moneymakers are usually two or three removes from the prime investigators whose search is for principles. Wide indeed is the tract between Castalia and Pactolus.

As the presidents and acting officers of this association are all men in whom the public has a certain right of property, and as they will well bear being delineated, it seems proper here to present, for such as may be strangers to them, a series of outline sketches of these post-of-honor-bearers in this migratory Congress.

The first president was W. C. Redfield, Esq., who officiated at Philadelphia. A noticeable man, too, is Mr. Redfield. One would scarcely expect to find, under so placid and venerable an exterior, a spirit living in storms and hurricanes. Yet it is true that his keen eye is steadily bent on the wind bags, (how invaluable had he been to Ulysses!) nor can a breeze indulge in any gyrations or irregularities, but he is sure to put black marks against it in the books. Long has Mr. R. been a weather-sentinel, and meteorology owes him much, both in the field of observation and in the far higher domain of speculation. But for a few live-minded men of this cast, rational meteorology would long since have been dead and buried in figures, which dull men can accumulate, though to interpret them requires the keen eye of subtle, but patient reasoning. If, as is likely, Mr. R. is wedded to his theories, there is no lack of counter-theorists to battle his unproved positions, and in rather a stormy temper too; a fault which seems quite to beset our weather-seers, as if the shrewishness of our climate communicated itself to those who supervise its whimsicalities. Mr. Redfield is, moreover, a good geologist, having specially studied the fossils and fossil rain-drops of the Connecticut Valley red sandstone.

The second president was Prof. Joseph Henry, the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, who presided at Cambridge. He is a hale and rather portly man, with a face alternating between abstraction and a very kindly consciousness, and looks as if he had a mission to work for man another score of years. He was born an experimental philosopher, and so lived at Albany and Princeton, until he was elected to his present administrative post. To his discoveries in electricity, the telegraph owes its practical development, and we verily believe, that with industry on his part, and a fair chance thus to apply himself, electrical science in all its fields might have owed him more than it does to Faraday. But this hope was extinguished under the Southern tower of the Smithsonian Institution. There he is

busy with what others, doubtless, could do as well; and thus is left undone what none other could do at all. This is a new instance of taking a man of proved abilities in one sphere to do what belongs to another and quite dissimilar one for which he has no birth-mark. We ought to learn that men are of most value when doing that for which they have a special faculty, and it is a fair question whether Professor Henry, doing that for which nature intended him, would not during his life effect more in advancing science, than the Smithsonian Institution in its aggregate existence is likely to do. High as this Institution stands as a practical fact, and useful as it is and will be, if it is to extinguish the experimental researches of Professor Henry, we could fain say, give us back the man and let the institution go. Professor Henry lacks but mathematical training and energy of purpose to do something greater than has yet been accomplished among us in the domain of physical science. Will he do so, is the question! Facts within our knowledge assure us that this must and will be.

Next on the list of presidents comes Professor A. D. Bache, the superintendent of the Coast Survey, who presided at Charleston, New Haven, and Cincinnati. He is a fortunate man in having found exactly the place for which nature and training have best fitted him. His quick eye, facile perception, and actual attainments in science and in the knowledge of men, make him the eminently able administrative man which he is fully admitted to be. Heading his class at West Point, encountering, as an officer of engineers, the stern actualities of engineering; as a professor and college president in Philadelphia achieving eminent success, he grew in that stature of mental training and experience which makes his eminence and usefulness in his present post a natural result. It is a rare thing to find so fortunate a combination of administrative and scientific talent, nor do we believe the country possesses another man who could so well thread the complications incident to Professor Bache's position. He is clearly Franklin's grandson. Whether, if permitted the requisite leisure, he would strike out and execute any great invention, discovery or research, is a question not easily answered; for though his original researches are highly creditable, especially in discussing the tides, they are, of course, only such as were compatible with his incessant life of action. The deeply reflective element whence the greatest achievements spring, has in him, as in most of our best men, been kept in

abeyance by the intense externality and practicality of American life.

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Professor Louis Agassiz was the next president, acting as such at the Albany meeting. He is a man of highest genius, who does great things quite naturally and yet with intense labor. Take him all in all, he towers quite above every living naturalist, and may not inaptly be called Cuvier Junior. His physique is of the noblest kind, and his ample forehead gives token of the mind within. He comes to us from the Alps, an Alpine man. ed under Cuvier, and by him honored as residuary legatee to a large field of research; he has been an enthusiastic and most fruitful laborer in ichthyology, paleontology, glacial geology, animal classification, embryology, and especially has he carried new light among the inferior orders of animate beings. His work on Fossil Fishes, has recently been crowned with the Cuvier medal, then given for the first time, though founded by Cuvier who died in 1832. He was Professor of Natural History in the Swiss university at Neufchatel, until in 1846, when he came to this country, and was soon made professor in the Lawrence Scientific School. Harvard University. Here he has done distinguished service to Natural History, and has been continuing the great labors of his life. A large cabinet has grown up around him, where he is buried in a multitude of special and general investigations, which unfortunately he rarely puts in form for publication, leaving scores of important researches and discoveries quite unrecorded. He much needs collaborators and reporters, to save his labors from oblivion. Among other herculean toils, he is maturing, and will in time present to the world, the broadest and completest classification of Animated Nature, which has been made. From such a man was the discourse by the retiring president, this year, to have come, had not ill health prevented his attendance. We have doubtless thus been deprived of some of those exhilarating generalizations and enthusiastic bursts which so characterize his genius and indicate its superiority to the mere talent of the ordinary investigator or descriptive naturalist.

The president now officiating, and who presided at Cleveland, is Professor Benjamin Pierce of Harvard University. As we look on his floating locks, furrowed brow, thin face and figure, and especially his clear, deep eye, it is not difficult to recognize the first American Mathematician and Physical Astronomer. His mind plays foot-ball with transcendental functions, and runs algebraic gauntlets with a facility scarcely inferior to that of

Cauchy, the "pre-eminent mathematician of France, who, declining to swear by Louis Napoleon, was a few months since ejected from his government professorship in Paris. (Why will not some millionnaire invite M. Cauchy to America, providing for him as Mr. Abbott Lawrence did for Professor Agassiz?) Professor Pierce is an excellent refutation of the usual slip-shod idea of a mathematician. He is a most interesting, earnest, and cultivated gentleman, of marked kindliness and geniality, and excellent company for any man of sense. Scarcely could a less genial man so long make part of that most high-toned, refined, and cultivated circle of college society in Cambridge, without at least an external exhibition of the humanities of culture and of life. So fully has the professor president mastered the perturbations of the planets, that he may be said to have put these wanderers under centennial bonds to keep the peace. When the world was all agog with Le Verrier's discovery of Neptune, through the perturbations of Uranus, Professor Pierce publicly declared that the planet discovered was not the planet called for by Le Verrier's theory: a bold saying that was, and we then thought a rash one, but he was quite right, as the daily confirmation of the lamented Walker's Ephemeris fully proves. Once, too, he was wrong; but when he found his error, he was prompt to confess and disclaim it as publicly as possible: a nobler thing than convicting Le Verrier of oversight. Professor Pierce has long been a sort of backbone to the physical astronomy of the country, as has of late been shown in his services to the new Nautical Almanac ; and we hope he may long survive to fill this post of labor and of honor.

At the fourth meeting, the only salaried office of the association, that of permanent secretary, was created, and a salary of $300 per annum established, the term of office being three years. Professor Spencer F. Baird, of Dickinson college, Pennsylvania, now the Natural History Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, was chosen to this new post. His duty includes arranging for reports of proceedings, the issuing of circulars to members, nearly all the current correspondence, and the charge of publishing and distributing the volumes of proceedings. The smooth working of the business matters of the association depends very much on the skill and fidelity with which the duties of this office are discharged; and it is fortunate that one so competent in every respect was chosen to it. Professor Baird was a favorite pupil and intimate friend of Audubon, and has made special attain

ments and copious collections in Ornithology and Ichthyology, besides a general study of Natural History. With a physical and mental vigor developed in collecting specimens, and still unscathed by time, he unites excellent business qualities, and thorough acquaintance with publishing. He is the American editor and chief translator of the Iconographic Encyclopedia, which, with his duties in publishing and distributing the Smithsonian contributions, has peculiarly qualified him for the labor of editing and publishing the association proceedings. Nor is there any one whose intimacy with the scientific men in this country is more general and desirable. His youth and mental vitality give assurance of many years of effective service still in those labors where he is already so much at home.

The general secretary of the association is Prof. J. D. Dana, of Yale College, if one so cosmopolitan in knowledge and journeyings can properly be assigned to a locality. (Professor St. John, of Cleve-. land, acted in this capacity at the last meeting, as Professor Dana was unable to attend. He is one of the solid human columns on which our national scientific reputation may safely repose. Beneath a kindly and modest exterior, he has managed to amass treasures of accurate knowledge, sufficient to stock many ordinary heads to repletion. He is indeed a man of wonderful scientific learning for one still in his fresh manhood; and this learning is made prolific by a philosophic and reasoning mind. Among American mineralogists he is facile princeps, as evinced by his treatise on mineralogy; and we much doubt if in this branch the world can show his equal. The Natural History of the Wilkes Exploring Expedition, which he accompanied, owes him a burden of obligation which will long be recognized by naturalists. Nor is it probable that a higher authority can be cited in respect to volcanic phenomena. These pipes of the Titans he has sniffed and scrutinized "the world around," having indeed carried on quite a flirtation with Pelée in the Sandwich Islands. His researches among the coral formations, and his writings thereon, take the very highest rank, and his monographs on Crustaceæ, Zoophytes, and Medusæ would alone entitle him to the highest standing in Natural History. As one of the chief editors of the American Journal of Science, he is abundant in good deeds and good works. Professor Dana is not perhaps a man of the highest genius, but he will leave the world decidedly the wiser for his labors and researches, even though he do no more in the future.

But we trust he will through many years be spared to apply his well-trained powers to the boundless researches ever inviting them.

Dr. A. L. Elwyn, of Philadelphia, is now, and has been nearly from the first, treasurer of the association. His distinction lies not in any particular department of science, but he is much interested in promoting it, and ever ready to aid its advance. He has paid much attention to agriculture, and has a model farm, on which he is laboring to give a scientific direction to the too empirical processes of the routine farmer.

And so ends our talk of the retired presidents, and actual officers, of this scientific body. We might dwell on the functions of the standing committee, which is its governing council of elders, but this would possess very little general

interest. It is on nomination by the standing committee, that new members are elected, and such nominations may be procured through any actual member, by any person really engaged in prosecuting positive science.

The subject of scientific advancement in the United States, is one of peculiar interest and importance. The work which science has to do, in cultivating the vast field of descriptive knowledge presented by our still new continent, in ministering to all the common arts of life, in evolving the grand principles and mysteries of nature, and in nurturing a higher and more beneficent spiritual faith; this is a work of such transcendent moment, that our loftiest conceptions are but feeble images of the unseen reality. The whole surface and substance of modern life is undergoing a ceaseless transformation, through the manifold ministries which science is daily embodying in the forms and operations of manufacture and of art. Though no prophecy reveals what the future may have in store, it is still the

confident anticipation of reason, that new wonder-workings will not soon cease to flow from the cornucopia of speculative and experimental science. When we reflect how few are cultivating philosophical researches in our midst, and compare this petty band with the mighty results to be achieved through their labors, and the limitless harvest waiting for reapers, our spontaneous aspiration is, without stint, and by all legitimate means, to increase the numbers and strengthen the arms of this too feeble fraternity.

America has not yet attained that scientific maturity which must, we hope, ere long entitle her to claim a foremost rank in the world-federation of philosophy. Pre-eminent in all the mechanical and practical functions of living and of labor, we lack that deeper element of digested learning and reflective culture, which will give continuous vigor, and systematic power, to our scientific progression. Our low tone of mathematical culture precludes us from all access to some of the richest placers of physics, and throws many of our ablest minds on a subtle and tricksy sleight of mind, in researches where the well furnished investigator would cleave a sure, straight road to the end. With leisure and wealth will come an accession of solid strength and deliberate direction to our too spasmodic vaultings into the realms of discovery. When the man of science is relieved from the excessive labor, and stupefying routine of the professorial function, when research becomes a self sustaining vocation, and when approved genius is permitted to address all its fire and energy to elaborating and verifying its originations; then American science, erect and self-reliant, will tower upward into a column of true national majesty, more honoring to us, and more diffusive of blessing to man, than even our glorious constitutional fabric. Speed that day, whoever can!