ccliii 



Sago Palm, Engelmann; On the most Favorable Manner of applying 

 Muscular Work, Nipher. 



During the year we have elected 19 Associate and 6 Corresponding 

 Members, and we now have 2 Life and 109 Associate Members. Death 

 has taken 3 members from us, viz., Mr. Pomeroy, Mr. A. Steitz, and Dr. 

 M. M. Pallen, one of the founders of the Academy. We have paid out 

 $120.31 for arch JEological work, $94.62 for cataloguing and other work 

 on the library, and $525.08 for publishing our Transactions. There is, 

 nevertheless, a balance in the treasury of $159.71. 



THE JETTIES — CAPT. EADS. 



Our Academy may also feel justly proud of the magnificent engineering 

 achievements of one who has twice honored the chair which I now resign, 

 and whose fame will never fade so long as our city has a history. The 

 result of Capt. Eads's work in building the South Pass jetties has not only 

 demonstrated the soundness of the theory on which he has acted, but has 

 already secured an open channel to the Gulf of Mexico more than tsventy 

 feet in depth and two hundred feet in width. This gives to the distin- 

 guished projector of this great national work his first payment of half a 

 million, and the work still goes on, deepening and widening the channel 

 from day to day. Its complete consummation, with a permanent channel 

 of thirty feet, will be worth untold millions to the West and to the whole 

 world. 



COXCLUSIOX. 



And now, not to weary you, let me say that, while we lack many of the 

 material requirements of an efficient scientific body, we have a rich and 

 boundless field for observation before us. It has been frequently remarked 

 in Europe that the scientific work of institutions is, in intrinsic value, in 

 inverse ratio to the magnitude of their buildings, or elegance and costli- 

 ness of their Memoirs. Let us take courage from this experience, and 

 remember that our present inability to build up the more outward evi- 

 dences of labor does not neccessarily preclude real investigation. 



Unfortunately, such outward signs, together with immediate usefulness, 

 are more apt to invoke popular favor and support than the quiet pursuit of 

 science for truth's sake. The brilliant discoveries of a Morse, a Fulton, a 

 Stephenson, a Faraday, which invoke universal admiration, are the excep- 

 tion, and few men not engaged in the work of science appreciate what she 

 is accomplishing for the amelioration of the race; and our business men, 

 engrossed with their daily commercial pursuits, and frequently duped bj' 

 scientific charlatans, are too apt to consider scientific men visionary and 

 impractical. Did they pay more deference to science — did they more lib- 

 erally encourage scientific work, — they would sufter less from such pre- 

 tenders. Only those who have made some progress in knowledge become 

 aware of how little they know, and are able to discriminate between the 

 bogus and the real ; and the failure to thus discriminate has been produc- 

 tive of more loss to our commerce, and our industries generally, than 

 would have liberallv endowed all the scientific institutions in the land. 



