THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE OF ST. LOUIS. 119 



Steps appear to have been taken promptly for securing a charter or 

 act of incorporation from the legislature, and such an act was passed 

 the next winter, approved on the 17th of January, 1857, and presented 

 and adopted at the academy meeting of February 9 following. 



The charter provides that under the name of The Academy of 

 Science of St. Louis the incorporators and their associates and suc- 

 cessors shall have perpetual succession, may sue and be sued, implead 

 and be impleaded in the courts, may acquire and dispose of real, per- 

 sonal or mixed property for the advancement of science and the estab- 

 lishment in St. Louis of a museum and library for the study of its 

 various branches; that they may have a common seal and break or alter 

 the same at pleasure, and may make and alter such constitution, regu- 

 lations and by-laws, not contrary to the laws of the land, as may be 

 requisite for their government. Exemption from taxation is provided 

 for all property owned or held by the academy so long as it is held and 

 used in good faith for the designated objects, except that leasehold 

 interests which may be granted to other persons are made taxable. It 

 is distinctly stated that members acquire no individual ownership in 

 the property and effects of the academy, their interest in the same 

 being declared to be usufructuary merely, and not to be transferred, 

 assigned, hypothecated or otherwise disposed of except by corporate act 

 of the academy: and whenever the corporation shall have failed to 

 answer the purposes for which it was created, or shall suffer its charter 

 to be forfeited by the law of the land, its cabinet, collections and 

 library are to revert to and become vested in the City of St. Louis, to 

 be deposited with some public institution in the city, for general use 

 and inspection, under such regulations as the city may prescribe. 



One or two of the gentlemen present at the first meeting appear 

 to have taken little active part in the affairs of the academy, but most 

 of them were evidently much in earnest, and these, as well as some of 

 those whom they proceeded to elect to associate membership, attended 

 the fortnightly meetings with regularity. Arranged in the order of 

 the frequency with which their names are recorded in the roster of 

 members at the meetings of 1856, these more active charter members 

 stand thus : Pope, Holmes, Fallen, Pollak, Stevens, McPheeters, Prout, 

 Shumard, Engelmann, Wislizenus, Eads, Tingley and Chouteau. It 

 is not difficult to analyze the constitutional provisions and the early 

 activity of the academy in connection with the interests and attain- 

 ments of these original members. 



Charles A. Pope was one of the most brilliant surgeons of the West, and 

 dean of the St. Louis Medical College. He is said to have possessed personally 

 a very valuable museum collection, representative of morphology' and compara- 

 tive anatomy. The records for 1856 show that at the meetings of that year he 

 presented to the academy or deposited with it ' A specimen of eyeless fish 

 (Amblyopsis astacus) from Mammoth Cave, Ky., petroleum from Arkansas, 

 and an insect, also specimens of rock salt and other minerals from HaJlam near 



