16 



claims of such a man, and finally to bring him into the 

 fold, where we may hope to have the benefit of his 

 knowledge, the influence of his worth, the lustre which 

 his character may throw upon the institution, arid that 

 his name may be placed on this Golden Roll, which 

 began in 1 743, and, coming down to the present day, 

 contains a record of all those who have been elected 

 to our membership. 



If I find that it is not too voluminous, I propose to 

 make it an addendum to this address which I have had 

 the honor to deliver before you, so that it may point 

 the way to the future as it will indicate the history of 

 the past, and that this honorable Society of ours may 

 go on, from century to century, by perpetual existence 

 under that charter which it obtained from the State of 

 Pennsylvania in the year 1780, so comprehensive in 

 its character, so full of wisdom as to the purposes of 

 such a society, securing for its members freedom of 

 transmission of their correspondence and Proceedings 

 even in times of war, and indicating that the men of 

 those early days had those high purposes at heart 

 which we of the present century are too apt to think 

 are our peculiar inheritance. 



What the discoveries of the past century have been ; 

 how much they have contributed' to the welfare and 

 prosperity of the world ; how rapid and infinite the 

 progress of discovery seems now to be ; such thoughts 

 almost overwhelm the mind that attempts to contem- 

 plate them and to wonder what is to come next. When 

 Benjamin Franklin drew the lightning from the heav- 

 ens by his kite, when he carried the wire across the 

 Schuylkill river and showed that communication with 

 such a distance could be had by electricity, who ever 



