Semi-Centennial Volume. 37 



rapid that it is very difficult to appreciate the conditions fifty years ago. 

 The war of the rebellion was just over. The effects of the border strife 

 were still shown in the rifle pits along the south side of the town and 

 the palisades still standing- at Kansas avenue and Sixth street. The 

 Union Pacific railway had reached Topeka only two years earlier, and 

 the construction of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railway was be- 

 gun that year (1868). The Indians were still on the rampage in much 

 of the state, making travel at times exceedingly hazardous. The famous 

 battle of the Arickaree was fought in the same month in which the Society 

 was organized, and Sheridan's winter campaign in which the nineteenth 

 Kansas participated, and which broke the strength of the plain's tribes, 

 occurred the following winter. Small wonder that the advance of scienti- 

 fic investigation was slow, and that people expressed small interest in such 

 work. The people generally were fully occupied earning the necessities 

 of life. So we find a very small band of investigators on the 82,000 square 

 miles that was the foundation of a great state yet to be, but not yet 

 arrived. This area was covered with a vegetation largely unknown, an 

 unknown population of birds, mammals, fishes, reptiles and insects, while 

 the mineral resources were but a guess. Clearly the first work needed 

 was an inventory, and it was along this line that the members proceeded. 

 It is true that some work had been done, but the condition of the scienti- 

 fic knowledge of the state is vividly portrayed in an article in the Joui~nal 

 of Education a little previous to this time, in which the importance of a 

 geological survey was urged. This article advanced the argument that if 

 such a survey only succeeded in discovering coal and salt, it would richly 

 repay the cost. 



With this hasty view of the condition of the state at the time of the 

 organization of the Academy, it is my purpose to show from the Trans- 

 actions how the Academy has made definite contributions to the much 

 needed scientific knowledge. I find myself embarrassed with a wealth of 

 material. It will be impossible to do justice to the individual workers. 

 I can only mention the names of those most prominent in the few lines I 

 shall here record. 



From the beginning of its existence, probably the most cherished ambi- 

 tion of the Academy was the securing of an adequate geological survey 

 of the state. The mineral resources were practically unknown, and much 

 money was being wasted in ventures that with fuller knowledge would 

 have been successful, or else would not have been attempted. Hardly a 

 meeting passed without some discussion of this topic. At the seventh 

 meeting Professor Mudge read a very earnest paper on "The Importance 

 of a Geological Survey of the State." At the eighth meeting, a committee 

 was appointed to draft resolutions urging such a survey, and at the ninth 

 meeting these resolutions were adopted. At the sixteenth meeting, in the 

 address of the retiring president, Doctor Thompson spoke very earnestly 

 in favor of such a survey. At the seventeenth meeting Dr. R. J. Brown 

 chose for the subject of the president's address, "Is a Geological Survey 

 of the State a Necessity?" Doctor Brown corresponded with officials in 

 each state where such a survey had been made, or was in progress, and 

 thus accumulated a formidable ari-av of evidence in favor of such a sur- 



