Ixix 



'Jamiary 3, 1882. 



Dr. Engelmann in the chair. Twelve members present. 

 The President made his annual address as follows. 

 Gentlemen, members of the St.. Louis Academy of Science : 



With sincere pleasure I congratulat- vou that on this, your twenty-fifth 

 anniversary, you for the first time in twelve years meet in your own 

 hall, surrounded by your precious library, and by the germ of a museum. 



Very soon afler the organization of the Academy on March lo, 1856, 

 the liberality of your late member, Dr. Chas. A. Pope, gave you a hall in 

 which to meet and rooms in which to arrange your library and museum in 

 the building attached to the medical college on the corner of Myrtle and 

 Seventh streets. In these rooms your Academy prospered until the fire of 

 May, 1869, drove you out, almost entirely destroying the museum and se- 

 verely injuring the library. 



At this crisis the Board of Public Schools came to your aid, and you 

 were granted by them, for the purpose of meeting, the great hall of the 

 Polytechnic Building free of rent, and with free light and heat. But there 

 was no room for the display of whatever might accumulate of collections, 

 and your rapidly growing library scarcely found a shelter and was in no 

 condition to be used. Under these conditions, and after an attempt to 

 secure the possession of a hall of your own had failed, you, through the 

 kindness of the Board of Trustees of Washington University, now occupy 

 in the building of the institution your own comfortable rooms, free of rent 

 and at a nominal expense for gas and heating. 



Looking around, you now find your library neatly arranged on shelves, 

 and find the cases along the walls destined to receive the collections which 

 it is expected will now flow in, since a good beginning is now made. You 

 must, at last, feel that you have a home where henceforth you may meet 

 with comfort and work with the hope of success. 



The expense of fitting up the hall and of the removal into it has been 

 borne by private subscription among members and citizens of St. Louis, 

 and the great work of arrangement has been performed with praiseworthy 

 zeal and disinterestedness by the Curator, Dr. Hambach, and the Record- 

 ing Secretary, Prof. Nipher, with the assistance of other members. But 

 this is not all. To make this valuable library perfectly accessible and 

 useful the books and journals must be bound, and funds for this purpose 

 also will be necessary. 



The Corresponding Secretary has continued his laborious work with 

 wonted punctuality. He reports an increase of your exchange list, so that 

 it now amounts to 260 in foreign countries and numbers 127 in the home 

 list, viz., 117 in the United States and 10 in the British Provinces — in all 

 387, or 15 more than you had last year. 



In the same period 9 associate members have been lost to the Academy 

 by death, removal, or resignation, and 3 have been dropped for nonpay- 



