122 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



taxidermist was kept for a time to care for the material which was pre- 

 sented only through the advance of his salary by members month by 

 month, one of the first principles in museum administration was prac- 

 tically recognized before the end of April in the authorization of a 

 collecting trip in search of some important fossils that were then being 

 talked of; and Mr. Chouteau several times allowed a representative of 

 the academy to accompany his parties into the northwest. 



In gathering the nucleus of a library, which went hand in hand 

 with the formation of a museum, letters were sent to learned bodies 

 which published scientific matter. In the course of this correspond- 

 ence it was learned that the valuable Smithsonian 'Contributions to 

 Knowledge' could be sent only to societies able to offer an equivalent 

 in published matter, which clearly brought before the new academy 

 the exchange value of such publications; and even before this point 

 was so emphasized, a committee had been appointed to consider the 

 question of undertaking some publication on the part of the new 

 academy. At the meeting of August 25, 1856, preliminary steps were 

 taken toward launching this venture, though the members present seem 

 to have been in doubt not only regarding its financial possibility, but 

 as to the productive activity of the small working membership. At 

 the next meeting, however, the practicability of undertaking the publi- 

 cation of papers was shown, and doubt as to the immediate power of 

 the academy to furnish creditable matter for publication was removed 

 by Dr. Shumard's offer of a paper by himself and Dr. John Evans, on 

 new species of fossil shells from the Cretaceous formation of Nebraska. 

 Other papers were soon handed in, and the initial number of the new 

 'Transactions' was issued early in 1857. It contained, in addition to 

 the charter, constitution and by-laws, journal of proceedings, etc., this 

 paper by Evans and Shumard, a description of a new Productus by 

 Prout, an account of glycerine by Schiel, a paper on phyllotaxis by 

 Hilgard, an account of certain Mastodon remains by Koch, a study of 

 the inscriptions on a brick from Nineveh by Seyffarth, an account of 

 Indian stone graves in Illinois by Wislizenus, descriptions of new 

 crinoids by Shumard, an account of the geological formations under- 

 lying St. Louis, as shown by the Belcher artesian well borings, by 

 Litton* and the first of a long and important series of local meteoro- 

 logical records by Engelmann and Wislizenus. 



There does not appear to have been much change in the academy 

 during the first few years of its life. Before the end of the first year, 

 Engelmann, to whom the elaboration of the Cactaceae collected on the 

 United States and Mexican boundary survey had been entrusted, so 



* Dr. Abram Litton (Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 12: xxiv) was elected 

 at one of the first meetings after the organization of the academy and was the 

 first thoroughly trained chemist west of the Mississippi. He was made chair- 

 man of the committee on chemistry. 



