406 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



Eiglit hundred and fourteenth Meeting. 



June 13, 1888. — Adjourned Annual Meeting. 



The President in the chair. 



The President announced the deaths of Charles S. Brad- 

 ley and John Dean, Resident Fellows ; of Spencer F. Baird, 

 Associate Fellow ; and of Matthew Arnold, Foreign Honorary 

 Member. 



The meeting was devoted to a commemoration of the late 

 Asa Gray. The President opened the proceedings in the fol- 

 lowing words : — 



The death of Dr. Asa Gray has already been announced to the 

 Academy in the usual simple manner, and the Council has discharged 

 its duty in providing for an appropriate notice of his life and scientific 

 work. Before calling for the reading of this paper, I desire to say a few 

 words, and present some resolutions. 



Nowhere else, except in his home, will Dr. Gray be so much missed 

 as in this hall, and from these meetings. He was elected into the 

 Academy on November 10, 1841, — a year before he took up his resi- 

 dence in Cambridge as Professor of Natural History in Harvard Uni- 

 versity. From the first, he was devoted to the scientific interests of the 

 Academy, and active in its administration. 



He was the Corresponding Secretary for seventeen years, viz. from 

 1844 to 1850, and again from 1852 to 1863. He was highly qualified 

 for this ofRce, as he had a large personal acquaintance with the scientific 

 men of Europe. He was Chairman of the Committee of Publication 

 for four years, viz. from 1846 to 1850, and in this capacity inaugurated 

 the publication of the Proceedings of the Academy in octavo form, to 

 supplement the ponderous volumes of Memoirs. He was President for 

 ten years, viz. from 1863 to 1873. As Corresponding Secretary and 

 President, he was an ex officio member of the Council, and for six years, 

 at other times, by election, — in all for seventeen years. But all these 

 official duties are only the means to an end : this end is the advance- 

 ment and diffusion of science. The richness of Dr. Gray's contribu- 

 tion to the Memoirs and Proceedings of the Academy admits of no 

 comparison ; though it was only the overflow from his abundant 

 learning, which was circulating at the same time in numerous other 

 channels. 



In view of Dr. Gray's many and varied services to the Academy, of 



