COMMEMORATION ADDRESS 71 
urgently and intelligently, before they could realize the importance to the 
city of such things. 
Fortunately there came among us at an opportune time a young and 
intrepid enthusiast who realized keenly the possibilities of the situation and 
the vast importance to the city of the creation of such a museum. <A pupil 
of Agassiz’s, and a nan of boundless energy and indomitable persistence, 
Prof. A. 5. Bickmore, was a capital engine driver to propel the train of the 
growing sentiment, and to him, I think, more than to any other one man is 
due the credit of initiating the movement which resulted in our foundation. 
It is pleasant to think that Professor Bickmore is with us to-day to enjoy the 
ripe fruits of his early labors, as is also Dr. Daniel G. Elliot, an important 
and influential friend and scientific adviser in the early days, and now a 
veteran and most distinguished zoGlogist, again connected with our institu- 
tion as an investigator and writer. 
The first thing to be done was to obtain from the State a charter of 
incorporation for the founders, under which the scattered elements which 
might make a beginning of such an enterprise could be brought to work 
together. I well remember our visit to Albany to wait upon the magnates 
of the Legislature, and ask for such a charter. William M. Tweed was then 
in absolute command of that body, and I will say to his credit, as one white 
mark against the terrible array of black ones under which his memory has 
long since been buried, that he received us most courteously, and seemed to 
recognize the importance of the project which we had in hand, and the 
charter was quickly obtained and signed by the Governor. 
We asked for no other legislative aid, and dared not expect or hope that 
the money of the people of a great democratic city could be asked or required 
to be spent to gratify the taste or promote the scientific pursuits of a few men 
of wealth and culture; nor did the most ardent lover of natural history dare 
to dream that within a single lifetime this magnificent group of spacious 
buildings would be erected at the public expense for the housing of our 
collections, and maintained by a liberal allowance from the city treasury,— 
so rapid has been the growth of a wholesome popular sentiment in support 
of what has proved to be one of our most valuable educational establishments, 
and a scientific institution which holds a leading place among those of the 
country and of the world. 
The museum was organized under the presidency of John David Wolfe, 
whose administration of three years, from 1869 to 1872, was the formative 
period of the infant body which was destined by and by to reach such 
colossal dimensions as we see to-day. Quarters for the storage and display 
of its first collections were granted by the city in the second and third stories 
of the old Arsenal Building near the south end of Central Park, and there 
