Ixiv Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 



at a higher point (380) than ever before (293, seven years ago), 

 although death has claimed more than the usual number of devoted 

 and energetic members — T. Griswold Comstock, James B. Gazzam, 

 Henry August Hunicke and Joseph Spiegelhalter. 



By generous contributions from a large number of members, the 

 Council have been enabled to add $2,500.00 to the treasury balance 

 brought forward from last year and by withdrawal from the current 

 revenue they have increased this to a total of $3,500.00, which has 

 been added to the endowment of the Academy — thus replacing in full 

 a gradual shrinkage of this reserve incident to the increased expenses 

 necessitated by maintaining our present home. A separate account 

 has been opened for the endowment and a vote recorded that the 

 income from it, only, is applicable to current expenses; and the 

 Treasurer tonight reports a balance of $231.15 in the general treasury 

 after the expenses of the year have been met, in addition to the 

 endowment which through further gifts from members, apart from 

 the earned interest, now stands at $7,400.00. This should encourage us 

 to further effort in the same direction. 



Though it is very gratifying to your officers to be able to present 

 this evidence of a sane financial administration of the business affairs 

 intrusted to them, I should not wish to give the impression that their 

 task has been an easy one, or to be understood to indicate that atten- 

 tion to book-keeping is the only obligation to be met by their suc- 

 cessors in office. On the contrary, an active membership watchfully 

 sustained at not less than its present number, and the derivation of 

 all possible revenue from sharing our meeting-place with others, are 

 needed to enable your Council, year after year, to report that we have 

 lived within our means even by the practice of the most rigid econ- 

 omy. The decent habitability of our building calls for a considerable 

 immediate and a regular annual expenditure for renovations — that 

 have been left, thus far, for a more favorable time, only imperatively 

 necessary structural repairs having been made since we have occu- 

 pied the building. The most direct way of meeting these and similar 

 pressing current needs lies in a further increase of membership. 

 When even they have been surely provided for, provision will have 

 been made for maintenance only, and that on a basis not commensurate 

 with the purposes of the Academy. 



Fi'om its foundation, the organization has enjoyed an honorable 

 and enviable reputation as a center of scientific publication. When it 

 had few members and met as a tenant-at-will, this reputation was 

 made and sustained through oft-repeated contributions of money; and 

 the addresses of its early Presidents abound in appeals for means 

 wherewith to nourish this, its soul. ]\Iore numerously constituted, 

 and in its own home, its need in this direction is as great as in its 

 darkest days. Your retiring officers are able to report that while the 

 responsibility has been theirs, no worthy paper offered has been 

 refused publication; but partly because of the absence of visible 

 funds for publication, the papers so offered this year have been neither 

 long nor numerous. It would be wrong to assume that those who 

 now go into office can this year issue all of the papers that may be 



