PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 97 



The story of the origin of American scientific societies has 

 been so often told that it need not be repeated here. The only 

 institutions of the kind which were in existence at the end of the 

 period under consideration were the American Philosophical 

 Society, an outgrowth primarily of the American Society for the 

 Advancement of Natural Knowledge, founded in Philadelphia in 

 1743, and secondarily of Franklin's famous "Junto," whose origin 

 dates back to 1727, and the American Academy of Arts and 

 Sciences, founded in 1780. 



The relations of the colonial naturalists to the scientific socie- 

 ties of England have not so often been referred to, and it does 

 not seem to be generally known that the early history of the 

 Royal Society of London was intimately connected with the 

 foundation of New England, and that the first proposition for the 

 establishment of a scientific society in America was under con- 

 sideration early in the seventeenth century. k * The great Mr. 

 Boyle," writes Eliot, lt Bishop Wilkins, and several other learned 

 men, had proposed to leave England and establish a society for 

 promoting natural knowledge in the new colony, of which Mr. 

 Winthrop, their intimate friend and associate, was appointed 

 o-overnor. Such men were too valuable to lose from Great 



& 



Britain; and Charles II. having taken them under his protection, 

 the society was there established, and obtained the title of the 

 Royal Society of London."* 



For more than a hundred years the Royal Society was the chief 

 resource of naturalists in North America. The three Winthrops, 

 Mitchell, Clayton, Garden, Franklin, Byrd, Rittenhouse, and 

 others were among its fellows, and the Philosophical Transactions 

 contained many American papers. 



As at an early date the Society of Arts in London began to 

 offer prizes for various industrial successes in the colonies, for in- 

 stance, for the production of potash and pearlash, for the culture 

 of silk, and for the culture of hemp, the vine, safflower, olives, 



* Eliot : Biographical Dictionary. 



