14 



the purse-strings with a niggard hand when contribu- 

 tions come to us for publication that have the merit of 

 novelty in original research, of usefulness in discovery, 

 because of the inability, often, among students to pos- 

 sess the pecuniary means to give them publication 

 themselves. Here such a society as ours stands be- 

 tween the student who toils over the midnight lamp or 

 penetrates the caverns of the earth, or looks into the 

 heavens for new planets and new stars here, then, I 

 say, the members of our Society ought, with a liberal 

 hand, to supply all such explorers in the fields of nature 

 and all such laborers in the fields of knowledge with 

 the means for giving publicity to their works and en- 

 abling them to spread abroad great scientific truths. 



In closing this address, I will refer my associates and 

 the friends that we have here with us to-day to the 

 last edition of the charter and laws of the Society ; and 

 the same industrious Secretary to whom I have referred 

 has placed upon the pages of that book, in the order 

 of their election, the various Presidents of the Society, 

 its Vice-Presidents, its Treasurers, its Secretaries, its 

 Curators, and the members of its Council. An exami- 

 nation of this list shows, I think, the great sagacity of 

 the founders of the Society in this respect: while, se- 

 lecting from the members those who were thought 

 worthy to be office bearers, they gradually placed each 

 man in the position of apprenticeship, educating him 

 in the work of the Society as he was found useful, 

 promoting him to what was the higher order of the 

 office holder, and thus bringing about an esprit du corps 

 among the members of the Society which I think has 

 largely contributed to its usefulness. Thus, we find 

 that before the illustrious Jefferson was elected Presi- 



