xviii MINUTES. 



William Churchill Houston. 

 Dr. William Brown, of Virginia. 

 Robert Erskine, Esq. 



In view of the undoubted accuracy of the Packet's list of those 

 elected on January 21, 1780, the question naturally arises whether 

 the names of those elected who do not now appear on the record 

 should not be added to it. 



The election a second time of some of the members can readily 

 be accounted for by the unsystematic way in which the records 

 were kept at that date. And to have the exact date upon which 

 were elected all the members in this part of 1780 for which the 

 Minutes are defective certainly is an important addition to our 

 records. 



The Packet's list does not, however, explain the appearance in 

 the Society's List of the Members elected in 1779 and 1780 of the 

 names of Colonel .Charles Pettit and M. Sue, Professor Royal of 

 _ Anatomy. M. Jean Baptiste Sue's omission is accounted for by the 

 fact that he was not elected until January 21, 1785, as is shown by the 

 Minutes of that date. In examining the Minutes for the election 

 of Col. Pettit, it was found that those of the meeting of January 

 21, 1785, show two very curious errors. There is loosely placed 

 between the leaves of the Minutes of that meeting a sheet of four 

 pages signed " Extract from the Minutes. Samuel Magaw, one of 

 the Secretaries," and endorsed in his handwriting " New Members 

 of the Philosophical Society, elected January 21, 1785"; the 

 twenty-second name in that list is that of Charles Pettit, Esq., of 

 Philadelphia. This name, in the transcription into the engrossed 

 Minutes, has been accidentally omitted, and this accounts for the 

 doubt in our record as to the date on which Mr. Pettit was elected. 

 As regards the fact of his election there can be no doubt, as he 

 actually subscribed the Laws about that period. 



Secondly, in the list of twenty-eight members then elected, the 

 tenth is " Dr. William Griffiths, of Philadelphia," under this entry 

 is written in pencil " this name probably ought to be Dr. Samuel 

 Powel Griffiths, [signed] F.B.," which initials are presumably those 

 of Dr. Franklin Bache, who was Secretary of the Society from 1825 

 to 1842, when he was elected to the Vice-Presidency. This pencil 



