1864.] 403 [Peale. 



naturally and inevitably follows the same course to supply his wants. 

 He chips the flint and silicious minerals to form his spear and arrow- 

 heads; he grinds the various stones to form his chisels and axes; he 

 moulds the plastic clay to form his cooking utensils ; and last, though 

 not least, his aspirations for futurity indicate an innate consciousness 

 of that great and good first cause, the Almighty hand, which formed 

 him of the dust of the earth, and placed him in a beautiful garden, 

 where he might have dwelt forever, if he had not fallen, by his own 

 free will, to roam the earth, — to sink by ignorance and vice, alas! in 

 too many cases, to that state in which stocks and stones were or 

 are his only guides or means, — the one for direction, the other for 

 subsistence. 



Stated lleeting, July 15, 1864. 



Present, five members. 



Mr. Chase in the Chair. 



Letters of acknowledgment were received from the Royal 

 Society, Gottingen, January, 1864 ; the American Oriental 

 Society, Boston, May, 1864, and the Lyceum of N. H., New 

 York, March 17th, 1864. 



A letter of envoi Avas received from the Soci^td de Phy- 

 sique et d'Histoire Naturelle de Geneve, March 1st, express- 

 ing a wish for full and regular exchanges, which, on motion 

 of Mr. Fraley, was so ordered. 



Letters with photographic likenesses of the authors for the 

 Album were received from Jared Sparks, of Cambridge, 

 Mass., May 28th, and Prof. Zantedeschi, of Padua. Mr. 

 James presented a photograph, also, of Asa Gray, of Cam- 

 bridge, Mass. 



A letter to the Librarian was read from W. L. Nicholson, 

 Esq., Topographer to the Post Office Department, correct- 

 ing an error in the account of the deficiencies at Washington 

 in the matter of United States county maps, given on page 

 352 of the Proceedings. Mr. Nicholson has a nearly com- 



