RECORDS OF MEETINGS. 701 



vestigated, and the methods to be employed were so different from 

 those of to-day that it requires positive effort to reproduce the lim- 

 itations imposed upon the men of 1780 by their surroundings. Wash- 

 ington is to all intents and purposes as near Boston for us of to-day 

 as was Worcester to our forefathers in 1780, the true measure of 

 the distance being not the number of miles which intervene, but the 

 ease with which they can be traversed. At the time of the revo- 

 lution, says one writer, the stage-coach was unknown on this conti- 

 nent — ■ a statement open to question, but still so near the truth that it 

 may be quoted for its practical definition of the condition of passenger 

 transportation at that time. Travel was effected either on horseback 

 or in the private chaise, caleche or coach. Communities under these 

 conditions were necessarily provincial, interchange of thought was re- 

 stricted and there was nothing to stimulate investigation. Real estate 

 and bonds and notes were the only avenues open for investment of 

 funds. When Ebenezer Storer opened his accounts as Treasurer of 

 Harvard College, he charged himself with certain real estate and with 

 two hundred and nineteen personal notes and bonds, the latter being 

 the bulk of the income-yielding property of the College. Turn to the 

 statement of our Treasurer and see the field covered by his invest- 

 ments to-day, and you will have as good a picture of contrast between 

 then and now as can be given. Think for a moment the way in which 

 the opportunity for scientific investigation must have been increased 

 by the utilization of capital as shown on our Treasurer's books. 



This period of bucolic simplicity continued for about half a century 

 during which there was no material change in the lives and daily habits 

 of our people. Things were not, however, stationary. This half century 

 saw the beginning of the organization of combined capital. The water 

 power of the country was utilized. Canals were dug. Stage-coach lines 

 were established and the country was prepared for the great revolution 

 which was to follow from the construction of steam railways and the 

 stimulation of industry through the combination of capital in the form 

 of corporations. 



Some of us older members of the Academy can remember when the 

 only public method of travel in New England was the stage-coach. As 

 a boy, I well remember the daily passing my father's house of the stage 

 which furnished means for the transportation of passengers between 

 Worcester and Boston. The influence of the development of the facil- 

 ities for travel since that time are far reaching. The various meetings 

 of scientific men which take place in the holiday season were abso- 

 lutely impossible then and the world lost the stimulus to research aris- 

 ing from the contact of different persons from different parts of the 



