Address by Professor Baldwin. xix 



volume of a series to be entitled " A Statistical Account of the 

 Towns and Parishes in the State of Connecticut." It was fol- 

 lowed, in 1815, by a similar account of the towns in Litchfield 

 county, by James Morris, and in 1819, by one of those in Middle- 

 sex county, by Rev. Dr. David Dudley Field of Haddam, father 

 of an illustrious family. To this work Dr. Field added in 1827 a 

 sketch of the history of Guilford and Madison.* It is to be 

 regretted that the projected series was carried no farther. 



During its first twenty years of existence, the Academy held its 

 annual meetings at the State House in New Haven, and its others 

 at the residences of its members in succession. An oration by 

 some person of distinction was a feature of the annual meeting, 

 and at those held at private houses some paper of a less formal 

 character was generally presented, or topics of general interest 

 discussed. If one of the members was writing a book, some of. 

 the chapters would be likely to pass in this way, while in manu- 

 script, before the Academy, and the views presented receive its 

 friendly criticism. President Dwight's defence of the common 

 language of New r England, and of the pronunciation of English 

 by her people, contained in a letter to an imaginary Englishman, 

 published after his death in the fourth volume of his " Travels in 

 New England and New York," was presented in this way as a 

 communication to the Academv in 1813. 



In 1818, a report was adopted from a committee of which Pro- 

 fessor Silliman was the chairman, urging the importance of a 

 proper geological survey and map of the State. This was the 

 beginning of an effort to press the subject upon the attention of 

 the legislature, which resulted, in 1835, in the appointment by 

 the State of two members of the Academy, Dr. Charles Upham 

 Shepard and Dr. James G. Percival, to undertake the work. 

 Dr. Shepard's report, which was mainly confined to mineralogy, 

 was published in 1837, in a thick pamphlet of 188 pages, and Dr. 

 Percival's, with the geological map, followed five j-ears later in a 

 volume of much larger dimensions. 



The published transactions of the Academy, aside from the 

 Statistical Account of the State, which was designed to stand by 

 itself as a separate work, began with Part 1 of Volume 1, printed 



* This was the foundation of Smith's History of Guilford, published in 1874. 



