THE FIRST NATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONGRESS (WASHINGTON. 

 APRIL, 1844), AND ITS CONNECTION WITH THE ORGAN- 

 IZATION OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION/ 



By George Brown Goode, 



Assista7ii Secretary, Smithsonian Institution, in charge of the 

 U. S. National Museum. 



In telling the story of the American Association, it is generally said 

 that it was a direct continuation of the old Association of American 

 Geologists and Naturalists. "" In a certain sense this is true. At its 

 meeting in New York in 1847, the Association of Geologists and Natu- 

 ralists voted to enlarge its scope, and to change its name to The 

 American Association for the Promotion of Science, and elected an 

 officer to preside at the meeting of the new society in the following year. 

 In September, 1847, the new association held its first meeting, and Profes- 

 sor William B. Rogers, the chairman of the last meeting of the old associa- 

 tion, presided during the proceedings, and, after the adoption of a constitu- 

 tion, introduced his successor, William C Redfield, president-elect. Thus 

 was the American Association born on the 26th of September, 1848, in 

 Philadelphia. Its subsequent history is accessible to all, and the thirty- 

 nine stout volumes which contain the records of its annual proceedings 

 are permanent monuments to the wisdom of the founders. 



All the circumstances of its origin, the causes of its founding, and the 

 influences which shaped its development have not as yoX. been exhaus- 

 tively studied, and it is not impossible that valuable suggestions may be 

 derived from a consideration of the other societies which were organized 

 in the United States during the first half of the century. 



Most powerful and important of all of these was the National Institu- 

 tion for the Promotion of Science, established in Washington only three 

 weeks after the Association of Geologists held its first .session in Phila- 

 delphia — the two societies having been essentially contemporaneous in 



' A paper presented at the meeting of the American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science, held in Washington on August 19-25, 1S91, and reprinted from its 

 Proceedings, volume 40, page 39. 



^Tliis was organized in 1840, under the name of the Association of American 

 Geologists. 



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