The Period to 1850 7 



tember 24. The scientific program of the meeting consisted of three papers 

 on fossils read at the first session, of a communication on ocean winds and 

 currents, of a General Session on Friday evening on subjects of wide in- 

 terest, and of sessions daily of the two sections of the Association, namely, 

 the "Section of Natural History, Geology, etc." and the "Section of General 

 Physics, etc." 



At the general session on Friday evening Professor William B. Rogers 

 delivered an "annual address" which was not written out or printed. Then 

 Benjamin Peirce read a paper "On the General Principles of Analytical 

 Mechanics," followed by a paper by Louis Agassiz "On the Classification 

 of the Animal Kingdom." These papers are not published in the Proceed- 

 ings of the meeting and probably not anywhere else. 



About 30 papers and communications of various kinds were presented 

 before the Section of Natural History, Geology, etc., and about as many 

 before the Section of General Physics, etc., few of which are printed in the 

 Proceedings of the meeting. A list of the 461 members of the Association, 

 including all the leading American scientists of the time, closes the volume 

 of 156 pages. 



The meeting in 1849 (the second meeting of the Association) was held 

 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from August 14 to August 20, inclusive (ex- 

 cluding Sunday, August 19), a total of six days, under the presidency of 

 Joseph Henry. No presidential address was delivered, but there were sev- 

 eral sessions of the Association as a whole and sessions of the sections of 

 "Natural History, Geology, etc.," "General Physics, etc.," "Mathematics, 

 Physics, and Astronomy," "Chemistry, Mineralogy, and Meteorology," "Ge- 

 ology and Paleontology," "Zoology," "Chemistry and Meteorology," "Nat- 

 ural History, Zoology, etc.," the new sections having been organized as a 

 consequence of a great increase in the number of papers presented and the 

 progressive specialization of science. This second Proceedings comprised 

 459 pages. 



In 1850 the Association held two meetings, an intermediate meeting in 

 Charleston, S. C, from March 12 to March 16, inclusive, and its annual 

 meeting in New Haven, Conn., from August 19 to August 24, inclusive. In 

 meeting in various places the Association was fulfilling one of its purposes 

 as expressed in its Rules, namely, to hold ". . . periodical and migratory 

 meetings, to promote intercourse between those who are cultivating science 

 in different parts of the United States . . ." At the Charleston meeting about 

 60 papers and informal communications were presented. At the New 

 Haven meeting six General Sessions were held before which 26 papers and 

 addresses were delivered. At the section meetings 1 14 papers were pre- 

 sented, 46 of which were in the general fields of geology and natural history 

 and 68 in the fields of the physical sciences. The Proceedings of the third 



