194 TRANS. OP THE ACAD. OP SCIENCE. 



The President read his Annual Report for 1862, as follows: 



ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. 



The seventh anniversary of the Academy of Science finds you again 

 assembled to receive from your President his report on the condition and 

 progress of your Institution during the year just closed. 



You have worked under the disadvantages of civil war, with its disturb- 

 ing and prostrating influences, a small but zealous band of friends of 

 science, unabated in your energies, though (I may not conceal it) ma- 

 terially crippled in your resources. You have, nevertheless, nobly re- 

 sponded to the appeal made to you in my last annual report, and have 

 commenced the publication of the first number of the second volume of 

 your Transactions. That it has not yet been given to the scientific public 

 is owing to circumstances beyond your control ; but the expectation is, 

 that it can be sent to your correspondents before long, thus fitly inaugura- 

 ting for your Academy the year 1863 ; a year which we hope will be hal- 

 lowed with blessed peace, that in its train brings affluence, and with it 

 love and support of scientific exertions. 



The semi-monthly meetings of the Academy have been regularly at- 

 tended by the more active and zealous members, and the objects of your 

 Institution furthered by the exhibition of specimens, the reading of scien- 

 tific papers, and the discussion of communications introduced here. 



Our Academy continues to be greatly indebted, as it has been since its 

 foundation, to the liberality of Colonel John O'Fallon, for the ample ac- 

 commodation which it has possessed for its museum, library, and hall of 

 meeting, in the Dispensary building of O'Fallon Hall, entirely free of 

 rent; a circumstance which has contributed much toward ensuring the ex- 

 istence and prosperity of the Institution. 



We must again thank the Smithsonian Institution for the liberality 

 with which it has transmitted our foreign exchanges. We are now in 

 communication with one hundred and forty-one foreign and fifty-six home 

 societies, institutions, and scientific authors : amongst them the most im- 

 portant and best acknowledged ones, sending them our contributions, and 

 receiving from many of them more voluminous and valuable returns, of- 

 tentimes illustrated with splendid plates. Twenty-three foreign and 

 eleven American societies or libraries, never having acknowledged our 

 transmissions, have been dropped from our list of exchanges, while five 

 foreign and two home societies have been added. 



Pnncipally through this exchange, the Academy's library has been in- 

 creased during the last year by 373 volumes, parts of volumes and pam- 

 phlets. Some of them were presented by the following friends, or members 

 of the Academy : Prof. Win. Haidinger, Mr. E. Billings, Dr. D. F. 

 Weinland, Col. S. H. Long, Prof. C. H. Hitchcock, Prof. J. Marcou, Mr. 

 Win. M. Gabb, Mr. T. A. Cheney, Prof. R Peter, Prof. J. S. Newberry, 

 Prof. J. D. Whitney, Messrs. White and Whitfield, Prof. A. Winchell, 

 Dr. Shumard, Dr. Pollak, Dr. Sander and Dr. Engelmann. Our library is 

 kept in excellent order by the efficient librarian, Dr. F. E. Baumgarten, 

 and is now probably the richest in publications on the Natural Sciences, 

 west, of the Alleghanies. 



The museum was less richly endowed, though specimens in different 

 branches of natural science were donated by Mr. W. H. Clark, Mr. John 

 Riggin, (who sent us the supposed meteorite of Chesnut street), Dr. Co 

 C. Parry, Dr. E. Sander, Dr. Engelmann, and principally, by Dr. Th. C. 

 Hilgard, who presented a large collection of lichens and preparations of 

 fresh water Alga;. The largest addition to our museum was made by two 

 collections, originally forming part of the McDowell College Museum, 

 which were deposited with us, the first by Dr. J. J. McDowell, in August, 

 and the second and much larger one (though much injured), a few weeks 

 ago, by order of Major General Curtis, to be kept with our own collec- 

 tions and under the same regulations, subject to the order of the rightful 

 owner. 



