1SS0.] *^' J [Gray. 



of all graces is doing its perfect work. May the next 

 Centennial celebration of the Society have as much to 

 glory in as we are enabled to record of the one just 

 terminated, and may 1943 and 1980 find our successors 

 still in the field labouring for the Promotion of Useful 

 Knowledge. 



2. The Early Botanists of the Society, 



Prof. Asa Gray, Cambridge, Mass. 



" E'en when the hoary head is hid in snow, 

 The life is in the leaf." — Drydett. 



Prof. Gray being unable to attend the dinner and 

 respond to the above toast, sent the following letter 

 to the Committee which was read by Mr. Price : 



Cambridge, Mass., March lOtli, 1880. 

 To the Committee of Arrangements of the American 

 Philosophical Society : 



Dear Sirs: — I am gratified and tempted by your kind in- 

 vitation to the dinner of the American Philosophical Society, 

 in commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of its 

 corporate existence. I knew that your Society was still 

 more venerable, but I did not know that so much of its vig- 

 orous youth was anterior to the charter of incorporation. 



It is interesting to me that your anniversary celebration 

 occurs at? this time, for it happens that the eldest sister of 

 your Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 

 is preparing to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of its 

 foundation a few weeks later, and on the very day of your 

 foundation, viz. May 25th. As one of the elder of the liv- 

 ing Fellows and a past President of this Academy, T should 

 have been glad to appear before you as a representative of 

 moc. amer. ruiLOs. soc. xvni. 106. dq. nuNTED may 21, 1880. 



