JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS. 



581 



City Engineer on the stage of the Mississippi river at St. 

 Louis, during 1867, with tables and diagrams. Referred to 

 the Committee on Publication. 



The President read his Annual Address : 



This, the twelfth anniversary of our Academy, still finds us in this hall, 

 where we have met for eleven years through the liberality of one or. 

 our members, Dr. Pope, now in Europe, a liberality now nobly continued 

 by his successor, Dr. Hodgen. «*».•« ♦• 



The familiar faces around me, many of them the founders of this insti- 

 tution, and those of our friends which in later years have become associ- 

 ated with us, give encouraging proof of ever active zeal and of abiding 

 faith in our future. Notwithstanding the manifold obstacles found in the 

 way of the unpaying, though never unrequited, pursuit of science, the 

 private business and duties of every one of us, the difficulties of the 

 times, and let me boldly state it, the cool apathy of the great public; 

 and, connected with this, the difficulty of our financial position— notwith- 

 standing all these drawbacks and impediments, you have nobly built up 

 and sustained this Academy, and made it what it is to-day, one of the 

 scientific institutions of our city, and I may proudly add, of the country. 

 We have active and zealous members ; we have a most valuable library ; 

 we have collections important and instructive, and in some respects 

 unique ; but we have not funds to make all these advantages, these funda- 

 mental conditions of a scientific institution, fully available. Our mem- 

 bers do not only pay their contributions in brains, they pay them also in 

 money, and they, many of them, have besides taxed themselves consider- 

 ably for the better prosecution of our objects. But to fully unfold our 

 scientific treasures, to make them properly available and useful, more 

 funds, more than the limited number of our members are able to con- 

 tribute among themselves, are necessary. 



Our regular income amounts to about $400; our absolutely necessary 

 expenses, exclusive of rent, which we happily do not have to pay, car. be 

 defrayed by $200 ; but with the meagre balance of $200 we cannot bind 

 our books, not to say anything of buying necessary works; we cannot 

 furnish cases so as to exhibit our collections and make them instructive 

 and useful to the public ; we cannot salary a curator, who would have to 

 devote his whole time to our museum ; we cannot publish our transactions 

 in regular annual numbers and properly illustrate them. It will, there- 

 fore, become an important duty for you to devise means to improve our 

 financial condition. 



The number of our active paying members is given to me by the Ireas- 

 urer as sixty-eight, three of whom have joined us during the past year; 

 most of them regularly pay up their contributions; the few who have 

 been remiss the Treasurer is convinced will not be found wanting. 



Our Corresponding Members number 142 ; four have beeii elected 

 during the last year, and two were taken away by death. 



We correspond and exchange with seventy- four societies in the United 

 States and Canada, and our foreign exchange list exhibits 172 names of 

 Societies and Academies in Europe and other parts of the world, two of 

 which hate been added last year. 



Though we have not been able to send them an equivalent since May, 

 1866, they have, with praiseworthy liberality, transmitted to us during 

 the year over 300 volumes and pamphlets through the efficient and gra- 

 tuitous assistance of the Smithsonian Institution. 



The following members and friends of the Academy have donated about 



thirty volumes, pamphlets or maps, to us: Dr. Baumgarten, Dr. Boisli- 



niere, Dr. Ciirtman, Senator Drake, Prof. Marcou, Col. Merrill, Dr. 



Potter, Dr. Shumard, Prof. Swallow, Dr. Ward, and Dr. White. 



Thus our library possesses now 1798 volumes in folio, quarto and 



