TEE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE OF ST. LOUIS. 129 



which its friends now hope to see rapidly swelled to an adequate 

 endowment. It may safely be said, therefore, that tlie hitherto always 

 present question whether or not the academy might some day find itself 

 without a meeting-place or the means of securing one is finally 

 answered m a very satisfactor}^ manner; and official and personal ex- 

 pressions without number testify to the warm gratitude with which 

 those who have so long struggled with little more than hope to support 

 them have witnessed the laying of this solid foundation of security for 

 the future. That their struggles are at an end, however, they can not 

 flatter themselves. Ample as the new building is for the present life 

 of the academy, it is but temporarily suited to the housing of valuable 

 collections, since it is not fire-proof; and one of the first things for 

 future activity to accomplish is the provision of a suitable fire-proofed 

 library and museum at the rear of the present building — for which 

 ample space exists. Very unfortunately, too, while the academy is 

 nominally able for the first time in many years to arrange its library 

 and more important collections for convenient public use, it is actually 

 confronted by the necessity, which has heretofore been felt by its late 

 host, the historical society, of utilizing no inconsiderable part of its 

 new home for purposes of revenue, by housing other homeless bodies, 

 so that, as heretofore, its publication resources may be maintained. It 

 is probable that many a vision of a reading room in constant use by 

 investigators and science teachers, and of synoptical rooms thronged 

 with nature and science classes from all grades of the schools of the 

 city, will still be dreamed for some years by the council before giving 

 place to the realities. That the academy will ultimately be enabled 

 to perform this part of its functions, however, should now be certain; 

 and the arousing of public interest in such matters which the world's 

 fair and its congresses and the national scientific meetings of this 

 winter are sure to lead to, makes it reasonable to hope that the time 

 when this may be accomplished lies not very far in the future. 



In its inner life, as well as in its outer semblance, the academy is 

 not unlikely soon to experience marked changes. Its activity as a 

 center of publication will doubtless remain unchanged. With the 

 growth of the city, of the medical schools and of Washington Uni- 

 versity, with which many of its most active members have always been 

 connected, scientific results of merit are certain to be offered for 

 publication in increasing number ; and there is little reason to question 

 that in the future, as in the past, no paper of real value will lie long in 

 manuscript awaiting the funds essential to its publication. As is 

 necessarily true of most learned bodies, the world over, the academy's 

 transactions are of an undesirable heterogeneity in their subject-matter, 

 but their publication in brochures, each devoted to a single paper, 

 ensures the availability of each paper when the entire volume is not 

 desired; and if a national agreement were ever to be reached by which 



VOL. LXIV. — 9. 



