30 Kansas Academy of Science. 



ADDRESS OF THE RETIRING PRESIDENT. 



W. A. HARSiTlSARiiER. Pioffssov of iSIatlieiiiat ics, "Wiishbuni Colleiie. 



ON this, the forty-seventh anniversary of the Kansas Acad- 

 emy of Science, we stand on that ever-advancing Hne 

 called the present, and eagerly look forward into that un- 

 known realm called the future, where lies all that we wish to 

 accomplish. In the immediate foreground we can clearly see 

 things that we wish to accomplish — changes in our environ- 

 ment that will benefit us as an organization and lead to larger 

 future usefulness to the state. In planning our future policy 

 we may gain inspiration and breadth of view by a brief review 

 of the past, or, so to speak, taking a hasty inventory. In this 

 review it is neither possible nor desirable to enter into details. 

 This has been done by Doctor Thompson, Professor Wooster 

 and others, and is recorded in our Transactions. We shall 

 note briefly the beginnings of the Society, with the beginnings 

 and progress of some lines of investigation that have been 

 carried through a series of years to logical completion, or are 

 still in progress. 



The conception and organization of the Kansas Academy of 

 Science, or the Kansas Natural History Society, as it was 

 named until the fourth annual meeting, 1871, has been fully 

 treated in the address of the retiring president, Dr. A. H. 

 Thompson, October 21, 1883. It is my purpose to relate very 

 briefly the main points in the organization, and pass at once 

 to the work accomplished by the Society. 



In 1867 Prof. J. D. Parker was called to Lincoln College 

 (now Washburn). Observing that there was no scientific as- 

 sociation in the state, and that the scientists then at work 

 had no organization to centralize their work and no uniform 

 method of publication, he at once began to agitate the matter 

 of forming such an organization, but received no encourage- 

 ment. People were busy with other things, and science re- 

 ceived but little attention. Finally he wrote to Professor 

 Mudge, who was heartily in favor of such a society, but feared 

 the time was not ripe, giving as one of his reasons that Pro- 

 fessor Winchell had made a similar attempt in Michigan and 

 had failed. Professor Parker visited Professor Mudge during 



