824 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ment leading to tlie earlier association, wliile liis brother William 

 became strongly identified with the later steps that merged it in the 

 wider organization which has now existed for half a century. For 

 eight years the Association of American Geologists and Naturalists 

 met as such, and then in 1848, in the city of Philadelphia, the new 

 association, under its present name and with nearly its present con- 

 stitution, took its place. William B. Rogers, the retiring president of 

 the earlier body, turned over the chair to Dr. W. C. Redfield, of Xew 

 York, the first presiding officer of the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science. 



Six members of this first meeting are still living, two of them in 

 Greater JSTew York: these are Dr. Boye, already named as the sole 

 surA^ivor of the founders of the previous association; Prof. Wolcott 

 Gibbs, of Newport;, E. I., the retiring president at the recent meet- 

 ing; S. L. Abbott, of Boston, and Epes S. Dixwell, of Cambridge; 

 and the two New York members. Prof. Oliver P. Hubbard, of Man- 

 hattan, long and actively connected with the New York Academy of 

 Sciences, and Dr. Charles E. West, of Brooklyn, the veteran educa- 

 tor, student, and public-spirited citizen. 



In reference to the place of holding the jubilee meeting in the 

 present year, Boston and Philadelphia both had claims to the honor. 

 It was decided in favor of the former, however, as the real birthplace 

 of the association; because, although the first regular meeting was 

 held in Philadelphia in 1848, yet the body was organized and its con- 

 stitution adopted in Boston at the last meeting of the previous associa- 

 tion, in 1847. Strictly, perhaps, the celebration of the semicentennial 

 was due Philadelphia, but there does not appear to have been any 

 other than friendly rivalry in the case; Boston was enthusiastic for 

 it, and Philadelphia consented, and through her representative. Dr. 

 Daniel G. Brinton, the well-known anthropologist and ex-president 

 of the association, expressed her wann and earnest congratulations. 



The arrangements for the meeting had been planned on a scale of 

 elegant and even elaborate hospitality on the part of the city and all 

 its institutions of science and education. Regret was expressed to the 

 writer by a leading member of the local committee that, at the 

 season when the Association met, so many of the wealthy and cul- 

 tured citizens were absent and their houses closed that there was 

 far less of elegant private hospitality than would have been gladly 

 offered at a different time of the year. But this fact was really not 

 a matter for regret, as the time of the association was so absolutely 

 filled up with work and with the abounding courtesies and invitations 

 from the city and its institutions that every hour during the week was 

 crowded. One day was spent amid the classic precincts of Harvard 

 Hniversitv, and another at historic Salem; one evening reception at 



