29 



rill, of Urbana; S. H. Peabody, of Champaigri; Rev. Francis 

 X. Shulak, of St. Ignatius College, and E. S. Bastin, of the 

 old University of Chicago — five men, one of whom, Dr. Bastin, 

 did not meet with us again. Lindahl, of Rock Island, and 

 Marcy, of the Northwestern, joined us in 1880, and Robert- 

 son, of Carlinville, in 1882, and a few additional members of 

 the faculty of the State University paid us the compliment of 

 an initiation fee when we held our meeting at Urbana, but 

 went no farther with us. If there was any professional or ac- 

 tive worker in biology or geology at any other Illinois college 

 at the time, we never made his acquaintance nor he ours. Of 

 the state scientific officials there were only Worthen, Thomas 

 and Forbes. Thomas left the state in 1883, but the other two 

 stayed with the society to the end. 



It should be remembered, in this connection, that this was a 

 time when college men, as a rule, worked like dray-horses and 

 were paid like oxen, and the sacrifice of time and means neces- 

 sary to prepare adequately for the annual and seminnual 

 meetings of the society, and then to attend them, was more 

 than they could, or ought to, make, except for some really im- 

 portant end. 



It will be seen that, under these conditions, our membership 

 would now be largely classed as amateurs. The active 

 members of the last two years were chiefly collectors of speci- 

 mens, and species-students of the old school — a few still-glowing 

 brands from the enthusiasms of the exploration period, with 

 scarcely a spark to testify to the coming illumination, in the 

 midst of which it is our present privilege to live. And so the 

 society passed, leaving no permanent material product of its 

 work, except private collections and such papers of its mem- 

 bers as were published here and there, as each individual 

 thought best. 



