90 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



I may add what some of you already know, that Alexander 

 Agassiz wrote me he had intended to return home early from 

 Europe, in order to give a dinner such as we are having here 

 tonight. He died on the way over, and his letter reached me 

 after his death — strangely enough, the fourth letter I have re- 

 ceived from men who were not alive at the time their words 

 reached me. 



My talk has been of men dead long ago, but I should be un- 

 grateful to the longest friendship of my life if I did not pause to 

 remind you of our latest loss in John Shaw Billings. He was a 

 man of too many competencies to allow of even allusive comment 

 here. 



Few men have been better loved or had so enviable a capacity 

 to convert mere acquaintance into friendship. 



It is difficult, sir (addressing the President), for a man as old 

 as I am to talk in the gay after-dinner mood, and if I have been 

 too sombre and too personal, I trust that I may not have been 

 guilty of the social crime of having been uninteresting. (Pro- 

 longed applause.) 



(At this point, u : 10 o'clock p. m., Ambassador Bryce took 

 leave of the assembled company, which rose in acknowledgment 

 of his departure.) 



Dr. Woodward: On an occasion like the present, we are 

 naturally disposed to magnify the good works of the Acad- 

 emy. But attention should be recalled to the fact that the Acad- 

 emy is not the only scientific society in America, and by no means 

 the oldest. It is an interesting phenomenon, that in recent dec- 

 ades, America has given birth to many scientific societies. But, 

 behind them all, is the oldest of our American societies, namely, 

 the American Philosophical Society Held in Philadelphia for 

 the Promotion of Useful Knowledge; and we have the pleasure 

 this evening of having with us the distinguished and honored 

 President of that Society, Dr. Keen, who will tell us something 

 of the American Philosophical Society, our oldest sister society 

 in America. Dr. Keen. (Applause.) 



