XX Centennial Anniversary 



in 1810. The second part followed in 1811, the third in 1813, 

 and the fourth and last in 1816. The range of subjects discussed 

 was broad. Two papers read by JSToah Webster in 1Y99 and 1806 

 had the place of honor, and treated of the supposed moderation 

 in the temperature of winter in modern times. It was his opinion 

 that the spread of population over the earth, and the attendant 

 alterations in the face of the ground occasioned by clearing and 

 cultivation, had resulted in a less equal and uniform distribution 

 of heat and cold among the several seasons, but that the cold of 

 winter was in the aggregate as great as ever, though less steady. 

 Judge Daggett narrated the history of a law suit brought for 

 destroying a dam across the Housatonic river, in which the 

 defence was that ponding the water had been a cause of fever 

 and ague. A lengthy paper by Dr. Benjamin W. Dwight, of 

 Catskill, New York, a son of the President, on Chronic Debility 

 of the Stomach, excited wide attention, and was republished in 

 England. One of its positions might well commend it to English 

 readers. "Wine, and wine only," he wrote, "is recommended 

 in holy writ for dyspeptic complaints. ' A little wine for thy 

 stomach's sake, and thine often infirmities' was the direction of 

 the Apostle Paul to Timothy. The words ' thy stomach's sake, 

 and thine often infirmities ' prove the disease to have been 

 Chronic Debility of that viscus, with a numerous train of morbid 

 sympathies ; and no prescription of Hippocrates could have been 

 better." 



Another son of the President, Sereno E. Dwight, then a mem- 

 ber of the JSTew Haven Bar, contributed a dissertation on the 

 Origin of Springs. . Tlie volume closed with a mathematical 

 demonstration of Stewart's Properties of the Circle, by Professor 

 Strong of Hamilton College. It contained also a number of 

 papers on subjects of natural philoso])hy, and two from the pen of 

 President Dwight, the more important one being Observations on 

 Language, the theme of which was that the intelligence of any 

 nation may be exactly estimated from its vocabulary. 



The year after the completion of Volume 1 of the Memoirs of 

 the Academy (which was tlie style of the title adopted) President , 

 Dwight's death sent the Presidency of the College, and with it 

 naturally that of the Academy, into the hands of Dr. Day. 



