212 DAVENPORT ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES. 



the age of persecution, and can now claim for our Academy the crown 

 of martyrdom. 



The Davenport Academy has sprung intp being, as it were, in a 

 night, and seems almost like some fantastic fairy structure. Yet here 

 it stands, real, substantial, a goodly edifice, with possessions gathered 

 from the earth and the seas — a vast treasure-house of scientific riches. 

 The publications of our Academy are in all the public libraries of the 

 world, and in exchange we have regularly placed on our tables the 

 publications of other scientific societies, in every tongue and from all 

 civilized lands. It is undoubtedly true that our little Academy is now 

 recognized as among the few successful organizations in our country. 

 Yet it has had no capital, no endowment, no income. It relied only 

 on faith, hope, persistence, but these have never failed it. It had only 

 to express a need, and it was provided for; only to proffer a request, 

 and a whole community, as it were, rose up to grant it. What means 

 this wonderful success? Simply this: Our Academy belongs to the 

 city; it represents the best thought, the highest aspirations of its citi- 

 zens. Their wealth is its capital, their generosity its endowment, their 

 thoughtful care its income. Why, look you, ladies and gentlemen, only 

 a year or two since, the attention of the friends and patrons of the 

 Academy was called to a burdensome debt hanging over it, and imme- 

 diately our citizens crowded to the rescue. A few prominent and in- 

 fluential men directed the movement, spoke only a few earnest, well- 

 directed words, and the debt disappeared like the mists of the morning. 

 So, too, early in the past year, funds were needed to meet some small 

 current obligations, and immediately there was conceived in the teem- 

 ing. brains of some of our members a "Carnival of All Nations." The 

 entire community entered with zeal and energy into the realization of 

 this happy thought, and the result was a magnificent representation, 

 which makes almost an epoch in the history of our city. It brought 

 amusement and instruction to its participants, and a considerable in- 

 crease of resources to the Academy. Thus it is our Society is buoyed 

 up, and carried onward by the necromancy of success. 



In this connection it may be well to add a few words of explanation 

 concerning the Endowment Fund. Of the amount raised at the citi- 

 zens' meeting a few years since, the surplus of about eight hundred 

 dollars remaining after the payment of the debts of the Academy, in- 

 creased during the past year to the sum of one thousand dollars through 

 the legacy of the late Robert Mcintosh, has been securely invested in 

 a farm mortgage, bearing eight per centum interest, and this is now the 

 nucleus of our Endowment Fund. Belonging to this fund there still 

 remains a small balance which will be invested in like manner as soon 

 as the amount is sufficiently large to make it practicable. It is with 

 societies as with individuals, when they live within their incomes and 

 begin to save, their success is assured. During the past year an oppor- 

 tunity was afforded the Academy to purchase four feet of ground 

 adjoining its building on the north, and, as it was essential for both 

 light and ventilation, the proposition was accepted. The note of the 

 Academy for three hundred twenty dollars, the price of the same, is 



