RECORDS OF MEETINGS. G97 



The paper announced for the evening was on " Earthquakes " ; 

 but Professor Jaggar, wlio was to present it, moved that in con- 

 sequence of the festivities it be omitted. 



The President introduced the toastmaster of the evening, Pro- 

 fessor E. C. Pickering. Professor Pickering spoke as follows : 



This is the third celebration of its kind by the American Academy 

 of Arts and Sciences. The first, eighty years ago, the Semicentennial, 

 also included a dinner. My knowledge of it is derived only from hear- 

 ing it discussed fifty years later. The second celebration, the Centen- 

 nial, is well remembered by many of us. When the American Academy 

 was founded in 1780, there was only one scientific society in America, 

 the American Philosophical Society, founded thirty-seven years earlier, 

 at the initiative of Franklin. Curiously enough, just thirty-seven 

 years later, the third Society of its kind was established, the New York 

 Academy of Sciences. 



Of the sixty-two charter members of the American Academy, three 

 were under thirty years of age, and two were over seventy. The 

 Academy once elected a man who was twenty-one years old, and thus 

 came within four months of having a member who was legally an in- 

 fant. Youthful membership led to long terms, the longest, that of 

 Dr. Jacob Bigelow, extending over sixty-seven years. The shortest, of 

 but a few hours, was that of Mr. Horace Mann. It gave him much 

 pleasure to learn that he had been elected, although he died the same 

 night. The term of one of the charter members, Theodore Parsons of 

 Newbury, appears to have been negative, as he is stated to have been 

 lost at sea in 1779, the year before the Academy was founded. The 

 terms of several of our members have exceeded half a century, includ- 

 ing those of three now living. The term of the senior member, Pro- 

 fessor Francis H. Storer, fifty-three years, exceeds by a few minutes 

 only that of his twin member. President Eliot. Our former President, 

 Professor Goodwin, has been a member for fifty-one years. 



The usefulness, in fact the justification, of an Academy like this is 

 not in holding meetings, or in reading scientific or literary papers. 

 Such work is only local and temporary. The real objects of the Acad- 

 emy should be the increase and diffusion of knowledge, the first by re- 

 search, the second by its publications. Research is the most important 

 of all. I take great pride, as a member of the Rumford Committee for 

 nearly forty years, in the list of investigations we have been able to 

 aid. But it is pitiable to consider the many cases that have come be- 

 fore the Committee where admirable work must be abandoned for lack 

 of a few hundred dollars. No more valuable contribution to Science, 



