TEE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE OF ST. LOUIS. 121 



Adolphus Wislizenua * was a physician, intensely interested in meteorology, 

 electrical phenomena, etc. He was made chairman of the committee on 

 ethnology. 



James B. Eads f was a civil engineer, broadly trained and interested in the 

 scientific aspects of his profession. His name will long be remembered in con- 

 nection with the first St. Louis bridge and the jetties at the mouth of the 

 Mississippi River — his creations. He was made chairman of the committee on 

 physics. 



William H. Tingley was a physician, and actively served the academy as 

 secretary until his removal from the city, which occurred before the end of the 

 first year. 



Charles P. Chouteau J was the St. Louis representative of Mr. Astor's great 

 fur house, an extensive traveler in the Northwest, and in close touch with the 

 work being done by Hayden in the then new and still wonderful * Bad-Lands.' 

 At the meeting of April 21, 1856, he offered to deposit with the academy (and 

 to present his personal interest of about one fourth in them) the collections 

 already made by Hayden, as soon as a place was fitted to receive them. This 

 gift was but one of many, and he soon put the academy in the way of utilizing 

 the great resources at his commaild in the many trading posts of the upper 

 Missouri and its tributaries. 



It is not by chance or without significance that 'M.D.' is afifixed to 

 the names of all the founders of the academy except Chouteau, Eads 

 and Holmes, or that before the end of the year 1856, when the original 

 associate membership of 15 had been increased to 104, no less than 

 35 of the first additions to the roll were also physicians, for it was in 

 the courses preparatory to and immediately concerned with medicine 

 that the chief opportunity for scientific study lay half a century ago. 



At the first meeting of the academy Dr. Engelmann called atten- 

 tion clearly to the fact that its firm establishment demanded the pro- 

 vision of an endowment fund ; and it was also noted that the valuable 

 collections of fossil remains and other natural objects then in the city 

 ought to be secured for permanent preservation. Little success appears 

 to have rewarded the efforts to raise money; but by making almost 

 every one of the original members the head of a committee charged 

 with some branch of museum activity, the acquisition of specimens was 

 greatly stimulated. The record of Dr. Pope's gifts during the first 

 year might be paralleled, if not equaled, by entries concerning the gifts 

 of other members. 



After one or two abortive efforts to affiliate with the new academy 

 a private museum which then existed in St. Louis, Dr. Pope's offer of 

 a home with the medical school was accepted, and the property of the 

 earlier Western Academy of Science, referred to above, was given to 

 swell the rapidly growing collections. The museum was evidently the 

 first love and mainspring of the new academy. Though money was 

 not available for extensive purchases, and the records show that even a 



* Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 5 : xxxvii, 464. 

 t Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 5: xiii. 

 $ Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 11: xxi. 



