15 



dent, he served as a Vice-President of the Society, and 

 during his residence in Philadelphia often attended its 

 meetings, and when absent in Virginia, having the 

 Society at heart, contributing original publications 

 and even sending to it geological and other specimens, 

 and discussing what some of us even now think are the 

 mysteries of meteorology. So it was with every Presi- 

 dent of the Society (but one, and he its most liberal 

 benefactor), that this process of education and assimi- 

 lation as officers went on from the year 1769 and is 

 now continued. 



It may be appropriate in a slight historical sketch 

 like this to say that the election of members is made 

 in secrecy and confidence. The theory is that no man 

 has the least idea that he is to be elected a member. 

 He is proposed by two or more members, in writing, 

 the nomination setting forth briefly the claims that he 

 has to membership in the Society, and four times a 

 year a balloting takes place, equally confidential and 

 secret, requiring three-fourths of the votes cast to 

 constitute an election. If a candidate be unsuc- 

 cessful, the nomination papers and all the ballots con- 

 taining his name are destroyed, and he is supposed 

 never to know that he has been a candidate. And so, 

 in this connection, and in view of this secret and con- 

 fidential introduction to membership in the Society, I 

 would urge my fellow-members, both resident and 

 non-resident, to look about them with open eyes and 

 with studious thought for men deemed fitting to be 

 associated as members of this honorable institution. 

 When they find, of their own knowledge or by inquiry, 

 a worthy name to present for membership, to indicate 

 in the same confidential way to their associates the 



