PROCEEDINGS 



yanuary 7, 1878. 



The President in the chair. Twenty-eight members present. 



O. W. Collet presented a copy of Faraday's Chemical Manipu- 

 lation. 



Mr. Riley read a paper on "Water and Land Mites," which 

 was referred to the Publication Committee. 



Mr. Riley remarked also in reference to the little acorn gall, 

 recently described by him as ^uercus glandulus^ that it is 

 referred to by Mr. Emerson in the new edition of his "Trees and 

 Shrubs of Massachusetts," in speaking of ^eiercus prinoides^ in 

 the following words: "The cup is often set with several abor- 

 tive acorns, which fall out when about one-fourth of an inch 

 long." This is but a further illustration of the fact that the gall 

 is so very generally mistaken for an abortive acorn by otherwise 

 excellent authority. 



Mr. C. V. Riley, the retiring President, then delivered the fol- 

 lowing 



ANNUAL ADDRESS. 



Gentlemen and Fellow-Members of ike Acadetny : 



Once more it becomes my privilege and pleasure to greet you at the 

 dawn of a new year. We commemorate to-day the twenty-second anni- 

 versary of our existence as an Academy, and, upon retiring from the chair 

 with which you have for the second time honored me, I am led, both from 

 a sense of duty and from precedent, to offer you a few suggestions. These 

 must take the form of a report rather than an address, for I shall not de- 

 tain you by attempting to review the general progress of science during 

 the year that has just closed, nor to even mention some of its salient feat- 

 ures as I did a year ago. I wish rather to dwell briefly on a few local mat- 

 ters that more particularly concern us. 



MEMBERSHIP. 



We have now 110 Associate Members in good standing, an increase of 

 one since our last annual meeting. During the year 24 new members were 

 iv — A 



