78 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



The exact nature of the processes of sexual and non-sexual repro 

 duction has been brought to light. Our knowledge oPgeograph- 

 ical and geological distribution and of the extinct forms of life 

 has been increased a hundredfold. As for the progress of geo 

 logical science, what more need be said than that the first volume 

 of LyelPs ' Principles ' bears the date of 1830." 



It cannot be expected that, within the limits of this address, I 

 should attempt to show what America has done in the last half 

 century. I am striving to trace the beginnings, not the results, of 

 scientific work on this side of the Atlantic. I will simply quote 

 what was said by the London Times in 1876 : 



" In the natural distribution of subjects, the history of enter 

 prise, discovery, and conquest, and the growth of republics, fell 

 to America, and she has dealt nobly with them. In the wider 

 and more multifarious provinces of art and science she runs neck 

 and neck with the mother country and is never left behind." 



It is difficult to determine exactly the year when the first 

 waves of this renaissance reached the shores of America. Silli- 

 man, in his Priestley address, placed the date at 1845. I should 

 rather say 1840, when the first national scientific association was 

 organized, although signs of awakening may be detected even be 

 fore the beginning of the previous decade. We must, however, 

 carefully avoid giving too much prominence to the influence of 

 individuals. I have spoken of this period of thirty years as the 

 period of Agassiz. Agassiz, however, did not bring the waves 

 with him ; he came in on the crest of one of them ; he was not 

 the founder of modern American natural history, but, as a public 

 teacher and organizer of institutions, he exerted a most important 

 influence upon its growth. 



One of the leading events of the decade was the reorganization 

 of the Coast Survey in 1844, un ^er the sage administration of 

 Alexander Dallas Bache,* speedily followed by the beginning of 



*Proc. Arner. Assoc. Adv. Sci., ii, 164. 



