A FITTING RECOGNITION OF AMERICAN SCIENCE. 291 



Gentlemen of the Academy : The foundation of this Society, 

 you all know, dates back but four years less than a century. It fol- 

 lowed close upon the adoption of the form of goveimment of the State 

 itself. Further than this privilege of a corporation, I am not aware 

 that the State has since bestowed any aid on it whatever. During the 

 long period that has intervened, the individual members have steadily 

 and honestly contributed their labors and their money to the advance- 

 ment of science and of the arts, the evidence of which is to be found 

 as well in the collections of the library as in the long series of their 

 published transactions. We have not been so lucky as to earn the 

 favor of the generous and wealthy at all in the proportion given to 

 some other institutions of the same general character. In point of 

 fact, we have to ascribe our success more to our own energies than to 

 the assistance of patrons. This is no bad sign for the future. The 

 Academy was never in more healthy and vigorous condition than at this 

 moment. The meetings are constantly attended by members who ap- 

 pear to give or to receive with interest the many valuable contribu- 

 tions to knowledge which ultimately take their place in the formidable 

 volumes open to the inspection of the world. 



Yet it is not to be understood from what I have said that the insti- 

 tution has been altogether without liberal assistance from several 

 sources. The most remarkable instance of a benefaction was perhaps 

 the earliest, that of Benjamin Thompson, better known under the name 

 of Count Rumford, who, eighty years ago, presented to the Academy 

 the sum of five thousand dollars, to be devoted to the stimulation of 

 the study of the various phenomena connected with light and heat, by 

 the presentation of medals of value as honorary rewards to successful 

 research. It is to the credit of the Academy, in these degenerate days, 

 to find that its administration of this property has fully justified the 

 confidence of the donor, the original sum having increased more than 

 fourfold over and above the cost of the medals which have from time 

 to time been awarded to successful investigation of the great subjects 

 proposed for study and examination. 



It now becomes my agreeable duty to announce the fact that, after 

 a careful review of the meritorious service of Prof. Draper in this 

 great field of inquiry, the committee having the subject in their 

 charge have, for reasons given by them, recommended through their 

 chairman, that the medals prescribed in the deed of trust should be 

 presented to him as having fully deserved them. It falls to my lot 

 only to recapitulate in brief some of these reasons. 



In 1840 Dr. Draper independently discovered the peculiar phe- 

 nomena commonly known as Moser's images, which are formed when 

 a medal or coin is placed upon a polished surface of glass or metal. 

 These images remain, as it were, latent, until a vapor is allowed to 

 condense upon the surface, when the image is developed and becomes 

 visible. 



