362 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



The dominant mind at Philadelphia was that of Leidy, thirty-six 

 years of age. Cope was a boy of nineteen. In Washington, were 

 Joseph Henry, sixty-two; Bache, sixty-three; Baird, thirty-six, and 

 others attached to the Smithsonian Institution, and the great govern- 

 ment surveys. Baird was often a contributor to the publications of 

 the New York Lyceum of Natural History. 



In New York was Torrey, a man of sixty-three, and among others 

 two young men, Theodore Nicholas Gill — the senior member of this 

 academy — and Daniel Giraud Elliot, now honoring this museum with 

 his presence — both born in New York, and both in their early twenties. 

 Not only have these two — early identified with the scientific publica- 

 tions of this academy — witnessed the change that has taken place 

 during the past fifty years, but their long series of contributions to 

 science admirably illustrate the strange power that has been exerted 

 upon zoological work in general, and descriptive zoology in particular, 

 by him who came into being one hundred years ago. 



In New Haven were James Dwight Dana, forty-six; Daniel C. 

 Gilman, twenty-eight, and the Sillimans. 



In Boston, were Agassiz, adored by the people — preeminent among 

 teachers — the studious lovable Gray, at one time (1836) librarian of this 

 academy, and Jeffries Wyman. Both Agassiz and Gray were about the 

 age of Darwin. Jeffries Wyman was a few years their junior; of him 

 Lowell has written: 



He widened knowledge and escaped the praise 



He toiled for science, not to draw men's gaze. 



Under the influence of these, Agassiz, Gray, Jeffries Wyman, there 

 gathered at Cambridge, at about this time, what we should now in- 

 formally and affectionately call " a bunch of boys." Shaler, eighteen ; 

 Verrill (who has come down from New Haven to be with us this after- 

 noon) and Packard, twenty; Morse, Hyatt and Allen — our Dr. Allen — 

 twenty-one; Scudder, twenty-two. 



Of the five centers of scientific activity, youth was certainly the 

 characteristic of the school at Boston. It is therefore safe to predict 

 that the germ of the new truth in biological science would find a more 

 favorable medium in Boston than here in New York or farther south. 



The infection was immediate, indeed " pre-immediate." The period 

 of incubation extended over about ten years, ending in an acute epi- 

 demic from 1871-1876, which affected lyceums, associations and acad- 

 emies indiscriminately. Convalescence than began, since which the 

 American body-scientific has enjoyed good health and has shown many 

 periods of remarkable growth. 



The " Origin of Species " was published in London late in Novem- 

 ber, 1859. The following month, Asa Gray, long intimately acquainted 

 with Darwin, and anxious that Americans should see promptly the 



