FOUNDING OF THE ACADEMY 9 



The more interesting question as to what scientific men were 

 the chief promoters of the Academy movement is not easy of 

 solution. Not only has the little coterie which is mentioned by 

 Davis as having arranged the plan of incorporation passed away, 

 but all the group of fifty incorporators. Of some of these men 

 no published biographies exist, and for others we have only brief 

 sketches and fragments of correspondence. Piecing together the 

 scraps and shreds of information scattered through many volumes 

 leads to no very satisfactory result. We may confidently believe 

 that, as Davis informs us, Bache, Peirce, Henry, Davis and B. A. 

 Gould were strongly imbued with the idea that some form of 

 national scientific organization, created by and bearing at least 

 a quasi-official relation to the Federal Government would be of 

 importance both to American science and to the Government. 

 It is more difficult to be assured as to others. The name of 

 Louis Agassiz should probably be added to the list, although the 

 idea seems tenable that his activities in behalf of the Academy 

 were prompted chiefly by a desire to aid his scientific associates 

 and friends. Marcou states that Agassiz " may be called one of 

 the founders, but not the ' prime mover ' " and intimates that he 

 took part in the plans for incorporation mainly to satisfy Bache." 



However this may be, he was sufficiently interested in the 

 Academy to accept the position of foreign secretary, to which 

 he was elected at the first meeting in 1863, and also to take an 

 active part in shaping the constitution and by-laws.^' 



Among those who have been mentioned as early promoters 

 of the Academy is J. Peter Lesley. In a biographical sketch of 

 his life read before the American Institute of Mining Engineers 

 in 1903, Benjamin S. Lyman remarks: 



"About 1862 he [Lesley] and several of his scientific friends earnestly dis- 

 cussed the desirableness of forming a National Academy of Science, that should 



^Marcou, Jules. Life, letters and works of Louis Agassiz, vol. 2, 1895, p. 157. Many 

 of 'Marcou's statements are erroneous, as, for example, that Henry Wilson was Vice- 

 President of the United States at the time of the incorporation of the Academy. They 

 can hardly be accepted unless corroborated by other testimony. 



"See Ames, Mary Lesley, Life and letters of Peter and Susan Lesley, vol. i, 1909, p. 

 419, where there is an amusing account of the meeting for organization. 



