4 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



" March 7 If the plan we first pitched upon had been followed, that 



of creating the Academy with a dozen or twenty members, and allowing them to 

 organize and fill up the whole number by usual system of ballot, then the odium 



of exclusion would have been divided and distributed You will perceive 



at once that, on the plan I proposed, not only would the odium (if any) of 

 exclusion be numerously shared, but a wider and broader opinion and control 

 would have been brought to bear on selection, which would then have become 

 election. And this was due to the interests of the government and to the claims 

 of men of science " (p. 292). 



In these letters the chronological order of the events narrated 

 is largely inverted, and, on the first perusal of them, the actual 

 sequence is not readily comprehended. They inform us that 

 Admiral Davis, having come to Washington in November, 1862, 

 heard and participated in various discussions among his scientific 

 associates of the need of a national scientific organization. Hav- 

 ing served as a member of various advisory boards, the idea 

 occurred to him not long before February 2, 1863, that the 

 organization might take the form of a Permanent Commission. 

 He at once broached the subject to Bache and Henry who agreed 

 that the plan was meritorious, while at the same time clinging 

 to the idea of founding an academy. Henry was so favorably 

 impressed with the commission plan that he immediately pre- 

 sented it to the Navy Department. This plan received the 

 prompt attention of the Secretary of the Navy, who issued an 

 order on February n, creating the Permanent Commission. 



While awaiting the result of the Navy Department's con- 

 sideration of the plan to establish a scientific commission, the 

 idea occurred to Admiral Davis that an academy might be 

 organized by the simple process of asking Congress for its incor- 

 poration " in the name of some of the leading men of science 

 from different parts of the country." This idea was also pre- 

 sented to Bache and Henry, who, however, were not immediately 

 convinced of its merits. About this time Louis Agassiz, having 

 been nominated by Senator Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, 

 a regent of the Smithsonian Institution, came to Washington 

 and met him on February 19, at the house of Professor Bache, 

 where were also assembled Professor Peirce, Dr. B. A. Gould 



