No.l 09.] 25 . 



Thougli the Board adopted the plan of a meeting, various causes 

 delayed the first one till April 1S40, when we assembled in Phi- 

 ladelphia, and spent a week in most profitable and pleasant dis- 

 cussion and the presentation of papers. Our number that year was 

 only 18, because confined almost exclusively to the State geolo- 

 gists ; but the next year, when we met again in Philadelphia, and 

 a more extended invitation was given, about SO were present, and 

 the numbers have been increasing to the present time. But in fact 

 those two first meetings proved the type, in all things essential, of 

 all that have followed. The principal changes have been those of 

 expansion, and the consequent introduction of many other branches 

 of science, with their eminent cultivators. In 1842, we changed 

 the name to that of the Association of American Geologists and 

 Naturalists; and in 1847, to that of the American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science. I trust it has not yet reached its 

 fullest development, as our country and its scientific men multiply, 

 and new fields of discovery open. 



It may be thought that the New-York geologists, in their in- 

 vitation, and the members of that first Philadelphia meeting, had 

 no thought of extending their association beyond geologists ; but 

 Prof. Mather's language just quoted speaks of " a meeting of the 

 geologists 'dr.d other scientific men of our country," thus showing 

 what were his aspirations ; and they were shared by all of us 

 who had any thing to do with that first meeting. But we knew 

 that only a short time previous, the American Academy of Arts 

 and Sciences at Boston had directed a request to the American 

 Philosophical Society, as the oldest of the kind in the country, 

 that it would invite the scientific men of the land to such a meet- 

 ing as the one we are now enjoying ; but the distinguished men of 

 that society declined, through fear that the effort would prove a 

 failure. Surely then it did not become us to announce any such 

 intentions or expectations; yet we did talk of them, and could 

 not but hope that what might fail if attempted on a large scale at 

 first, might be accomplished step by step. Had not the New-York 

 geologists issued that modest invitation, and confined it at first to 

 the State surveyors, probably even yet we might have been without 

 an Association for the Advancement of Science. 



Such are some of the results of this Geological Survey, that have 



