68 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



for territory save Italy and Germany, Switzerland and Russia ; 

 but the Italians and Germans, the Swiss and the Russians were 

 to hold their own in the more generous emulation of scientific 

 exploration which was to follow. 



During the 17th and 18th centuries numerous explorations were 

 made both in North and South America by Spanish, French, 

 Dutch, German, and Scandinavian explorers. Although these 

 men have been studied in the preparation of this address, I do 

 not intend to speak of them at any length, but to confine my 

 attention in the main to the growth of scientific opinions and 

 institutions in the English colonies. 



The number of volumes of reports and narratives, often sump- 

 tuously printed and expensively illustrated, which were published 

 during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, impresses upon 

 one most powerfully the idea of the earnestness, diligence, and 

 intelligence of their writers. 



The Spaniards. — Even as early as the beginning of the century, 

 Spanish influence was less prominent in the affairs of the New 

 World ; in no respect more strikingly so than in explorations. 

 The political supremacy of Spain was gone, her intellectual ac- 

 tivity was waning, and the mighty storm of energy, by which her 

 domain in America had been so suddenly and widely established, 

 seemed to have completely exhausted the energy of her people, 

 depleted as it had been by wars without and religious persecution 

 within. 



From this time forward the record of Spanish achievements in 

 the fields of science and discovery is very meagre. Between the 

 day of Hernandez and that of Azara and Mutis, who explored 

 South America in the latter part of the eighteenth century, I find 

 but two names worthy of mention, and these seem properly to be- 

 long with the naturalists who lived a hundred years before them. 

 I refer to Jose Gumilla who published, in 1741, a work on the 

 natural history of the Orinoco Region, and Miguel Venegas, 

 whose " Noticia de la California" appeared in 1757. 



