civil 



The mean temperature of the past year, at mv place, in the outskirts of 

 the city, where the influence of densely built up squares is not felt, was 

 56°.o; while the mean temperature of the city itself, according to my forty 

 years' observation, is only 55°. 4. Last year was one of the unusually warm 

 years with us: 1858, and again i860 and 1861, as well as 1870 and 1871, 

 were warmer, and 1854 with 58°. o mean temperature was the warmest 

 observed by me. 



My tables show that January was very mild, Februarj' and March a 

 little below the average, and April decidedly cold, marking 9° below the 

 average, so that spring was cool and late. But all the other months of the 

 year, with the exception of November, were unusually warm; May indi- 

 cated about 3, June even 4, July and August each 2 degrees above the 

 average. 



The rain-fall of the year, of 33 inches, though less by 9 inches than the 

 average, and 7 inches less than in the previous year, seems to have been so 

 beneficially distributed as to bring the crops to perfect development. But 

 the rain-fall of the years 1870, '71 and '72 was too limited, less than we had 

 observed it for many years, and on the whole insufficient for the farmer 

 and gardener. 



The President then called Mr. Todd to the chair and read his 

 annual address, as follows : 



PRESIDENT Harris's address. 



Gentlemen of the Academy of Science : 



Upon retiring from the chair, which I have filled the past year through 

 your kind sufferance, I comply with the usual custom, and offer a few 

 reflections upon the recent achievements and present status of science. 

 From year to year we have beheld a steady increase in the number of 

 investigators of Nature, and in proportion as their labors have become 

 systematic and organized their influence upon civilization has become 

 more marked and more generally recognized. We may look upon science 

 now as the great power of the age, having not only its indirect influence 

 upon the arts of man and upon the theoretical views of the learned, but 

 having likewise a direct effect upon the masses of common people, who 

 read its glad tidings in myriad books carefully adapted to convey to the 

 popular mind the processes and results of scientific investigation. The 

 earth and the atmosphere; the waters of the sea and the rivers; the distant 

 stars ; the invisible infusorial world, and the subtle molecular changes in 

 bodies; the wonders of organic life exhibited in plant an<j animal; — all 

 these, in their minute subdivisions, are unfolded to the people, high and 

 low. 



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MAN, 



too, is written with the aid of all other sciences. In many respects, the 

 moral and religious life of man is receiving direct modification from his 

 familiarity with scientific methods and results. His physical life is so radi- 



