106 JOURNAL OF THE [April, 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT, 

 CHARLES F. COX. 



(^Delivered January 7,0th, 1888.) 



I appreciate very highly the good will and good opinion im- 

 plied in my election to the presidency of this Society, and shall 

 feel greatly gratified if I am able to serve you acceptably in the 

 position to which you have chosen me, and to assist you in the 

 promotion of that department of science in which we are all 

 most deeply interested. I hope that, during the year upon 

 which we have just entered, the Society will continue in the 

 successful path which it has followed hitherto and that we shall 

 work on with the same quiet, unpretentious and undemonstrative 

 zeal with which we have pursued our course heretofore, and 

 which is certainly the habit of mind most befitting the humble 

 devotees of Nature. 



There are times in the history of every organization like this 

 when the question : Is any really worthy purpose being accom- 

 plished 1 comes home to the membership with oppressive force ; 

 and I cannot help thinking that there is too strong a tendency 

 to test the matter by the narrow criterion of merely visible 

 results. 



But our success is not to be measured by the amount of stir 

 which we are able to make in the world around us ; nor is it to be 

 gauged by the quantity of so-called original matter which we 

 may produce and publish. It can never be less than an un- 

 speakable pleasure to discover a new fact or to devise a novel 

 and useful process, and I am sure that every such achievement 

 by one of our members will be regarded as a credit to the Soci- 

 ety and a subject of just pride to us all. Nevertheless, I can- 

 not consider origination as our chief and paramount aim. On 

 the contrary, it seems to me that the object of such an associa- 

 tion as this must be the acquisition and accumulation of knowl- 

 edge for ourselves much more than the propagation and dis- 

 semination of it amongst others. In my opinion, it will be no 

 serious reproach to us if we are looked upon as " a mutual benefit 

 society," and I judge that we shall furnish a sufficient reason for 

 our organized existence if we keep alive amongst ourselves an 

 intelligent and progressive interest in our particular branch of 



