BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 
OF 
JOSEPH GILBERT TOTTEN. 
Mr. Presipent anp GENTLEMEN oF THE ACADEMY :— 
In conformity with a clause of the Constitution of this 
Academy, and in obedience to your instructions, I am here 
to render the tribute of a formal biographical notice in com- 
memoration of one who was numbered among our most 
venerable and most honored associates. If, in the language 
of one of our body, on a previous and similar occasion, “ it 
is no unreasonable assumption that public benefit and indi- 
vidual incentives may be derived from the history of any 
man whose scientific services have rendered him worthy of 
admittance to your number,” that assumption must have a 
peculiar force when it applies to one who has “ finished his 
course,” and has filled a life, protracted beyond the usual 
term, with scientific labors of no ordinary variety and mag- 
nitude, 
It is but little more than two years since we first met for 
_ the great and important work of organizing this National 
Academy, and with us—of our number, if not personally 
present — were “both the gray-headed and very aged men.” 
But, alas! these, like autumnal leavesyare rapidly falling 
away, and already the places of a Totten, a Hitchcock, and 
a Silliman know them no more, save in the records of their 
lives and deeds, and in the grateful memories of their associ- 
ates. What a trio of names, glorious in the annals of sci- 
ence, is this! Well may they be incentives to us who yet 
