1901.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELrHIA. 763 



spacious gallery above for the arrangement of periodicals is well 

 known to all now using the library. 



The accompanying plates, D, E and F, illustrate the ground-plaa 

 of the building vacated in 1876 and the present distribution and 

 aspect of the library. 



The first Librarian was John Speakmau, who was elected Novem. 

 ber 29, 1814, and served until December 26, 1815, when he was 

 succeeded in rapid succession by Caleb Richardson, Jacob Pierce, 

 S. W. Conrad, Charles Pickering, Paul Beck Goddard, Joseph 

 Carson, Robert Bridges, Alfred L. Elwyn, Joseph Leidy, and 

 William S. Zantziuger. Several of these served only one or two 

 years. Dr. Zantzinger alone reaching an incumbency of ten years. 

 Then came Dr. James Aitken Meigs, from August, 1856, to May, 

 1859, and Dr. James C. Fisher, from June 28, 1859, to August 

 27, 1861, when he entered the army as contract surgeon and was 

 succeeded by Dr. R. E. Griffith, who served only one year. 



It was becoming hard to find any one who was willing to take the 

 office. There were certain duties which manifestly had to be per- 

 formed. As exchanges came in and the Wilson packages were 

 delivered, the accessions, must be shelved and recorded, even 

 though they were not systematically catalogued, and some few, 

 from time to time, had to be prepared for the binder. Dr. Robert 

 Bridges devoted much time at irregular intervals to the latter duty, 

 although not officially. He deserves, also, the grateful remem- 

 brance of the Academy for his supervision, in connection with Mr. 

 William S. Vaux, of the distribution of the Proceedings and Jour- 

 nal to subscribers and exchanges, the editorial work being per- 

 formed by Dr. Joseph Leidy, then and until his death, Chairman 

 of the Publication Committee. 



Mr. J. Dickinson Sergeant was finally prevailed on to take the 

 Librarianship, but only on condition that an assistant should be 

 engaged to perform the routine duties of the office. The financial 

 resources of the Academy were not such as to permit the engage- 

 ment of a trained bibliographer, and a boy was employed who 

 owed his selection to the good offices of Mr. John Cassin. The 

 Assistant's first record of accessions was made February 4, 1862, 

 within a few days of the beginning of the second half century of 

 the society's history. 



