350 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



On motion of the Recording Secretary, it was 

 Voted, To amend Standing Vote 9 by substituting "eight" 

 for " half-past seven," so as to read : — 



" 9. The annual meeting and the other stated meetings shall be 

 holden at eight o'clock, P. M." 



The vacancy occasioned by the death of the President, 

 Joseph Lovering, was filled by the election of 



Josiah P. Cooke, President. 



Dr. Peabody, in relinquishing the chair, expressed the 

 pleasure he had experienced while serving as an officer of the 

 Academy, and intimated his intention of declining re-election 

 as Vice-President at the approaching annual meeting. 



The President elect addressed the Academy as follows : — 



I thank you most warmly for the very great honor you have con- 

 ferred by this election as your President, and I need not to assure 

 you that I shall work for the best interests of our Academy so long 

 as your favor and my health and strength permit. I have been 

 for nearly forty years a member, and for thirty-eight years I have 

 discharged the duties of one or another of your subordinate offices. 

 For nineteen years I have been your Corresponding Secretary, and 

 during that time have edited twenty volumes of your Proceedings and 

 Memoirs, — much more than one half of all the material published by 

 the Academy since its foundation. You can understand from this 

 what pleasure it will give me to finish this long period of service as 

 your presiding officer. Moreover, my associations with the Academy 

 go back before my membership. 



It so happened that my honored father occupied for a long period 

 a law office at No. 9 State Street, adjoining that of John Pickering, 

 that noble man and learned scholar, who was your President from 

 1839 to 1846. Through the kindness of this great man, who warmly 

 encouraged a boy's scientific tastes, I had free access to his library 

 and the use of his books ; and it was there that I came to know that 

 there was such a learned society as the American Academy of Arts 

 and Sciences, and to indulge the thought that I might one day make 

 myself worthy to become a member of such an illustrious body. I 

 cannot but confess that the lustre has become somewhat dimmed with 



