Ixxxii 

 The President then read his annual address, as follows : 



THE president's ADDRESS. 



Gentlemen of the Academy : 



It behooves me to give you an account of the past year's history of our 

 Institution. This history, however, is a rather quiet one. We feel now 

 fully at home in our comfortable quarters in Washington University, where 

 we find ample room, surrounded by our rapidly increasing library and by 

 the rudiments of our museum. We have met here regularly, reading and 

 discussing papers, and examining objects of scientific interest presented to 

 the Academy, and are always happy to show our hospitality to our friends 

 and to those of Science. While all around us the activity in scientific work 

 and especially in the Natural Sciences is increasing, and is making itself 

 felt in investigations and discoveries as well as in the practical application 

 of these, we work along in our unpretentious way, convinced that every 

 honest laborer in this vast field adds to the general fund of knowledge. 



As a result of our scientific work we were able to publish last spring 

 another number of our Transactions, No. 2 of vol. iv., and it is expected 

 that a third number can be issued in the course of this year, as it is alrea- 

 dy fairly under way. This, however, makes it so much more necessary that 

 our means should be realized, for I cannot too earnestly urge upon the 

 members of this Academy that through our publications not only our rela- 

 tions with other societies and other men of science are kept up, but through 

 them our standing as a scientific body must be sustained. And these pub- 

 lications cost money; they are, in fact, the greatest expense we have; 

 most of our means go to pay the printer and engraver. 



We have now an exchange list of 314 names, scientific bodies and men 

 of science spread over the whole globe, to whom we send our Transactions 

 and from whom we receive their publications, generally much more 

 extensive than our own. Nine names, six of them in foreign coun- 

 tries, have been added in the past year. Through our Transactions the 

 name of St. Louis as a scientific centre is thus carried to all parts of our 

 globe. Our exchanges are accomplished partly through the mails, but 

 those with foreign countries, as heretofore, almost entirely through the 

 agency of the Smithsonian Institution, which, as you know, is gratuitous, 

 cexept as to the freight between here and Washington. 



In carrying on these exchanges we have had the invaluable service of 

 our Corresponding Secretary, whose good work we now appreciate so 



