APRIL 5, 1912] 
gigantic powers in their minds, to proceed 
quietly, methodically and unperturbed to 
found an association for pure learning 
which has now become one of the foremost 
among the scientific institutions of the 
world. 
The vibrations, whose echoes still re- 
sound in this Hall of Science, though the 
voices that started them can no longer be 
heard, are too numerous to be mentioned 
on this occasion, when there is so much that 
is new to be brought out within the short 
time allotted for our assemblage for the 
last time in the academy’s first century. 
This institution was born of the enthu- 
siasm of earnest lovers of science. They 
had before them a single purpose, the un- 
veiling of the laws of nature and the en- 
eraving of them on the tablets of the 
society that they might be studied by men 
of all nations. To accomplish this great 
end as the society grew they realized the 
necessity of exploration, of collections, of 
laboratories, of a library and of reciprocity 
with bodies having similar aims. 
In the beginning of the nineteenth cen- 
tury a few young men in this city spent 
their spare time in studying natural his- 
tory. They soon learned it was to their 
mutual interest to meet to compare notes. 
In the year 1812 John Speakman and 
Jacob Gilliams agreed that it would be well 
to hold regular meetings ; accordingly, they, 
with Drs. Gerard Troost, Jr., Nicholas S. 
Parmentier, Camillus Macmahon Mann 
and John Shinn, Jr., met at the home of 
one of their members on the northwest 
corner of Market and 2d Streets, on Jan- 
uary 25, 1812. The minutes of this meet- 
ing set forth that their meetings would be 
for the rational disposition of their leisure 
moments. Their next meeting was held at 
a public house on Market Street near 
Franklin Place on the 21st day of March, 
1812, at which time Dr. Samuel Jackson, 
SCIENCE 
519 
of the University of Pennsylvania, sug- 
gested the title of The Academy of Natural 
Sciences. The collection of the society at 
this time was represented by a few common 
insects, a few corals and shells, a dried toad 
fish and a stuffed monkey. 
Thus established, the academy, with its 
constantly increasing resources, has been 
for one hundred years free for the use of 
all students of natural history. 
The masters of science have come from 
all parts of the world to consult the great 
zoological, botanical, geological and ethno- 
logical collections which the accumulated 
labors of our members, during a century of 
activity, have brought together in our 
museum. 
Writers and students of all grades have 
eome to consult the wonderful natural-his- 
tory library which the liberality of our 
members and the world-wide exchange of 
our own publications have enabled us to 
gather on our shelves. 
Pupils from our schools have come under 
the guidance of their teachers to study and 
profit by the exhibits displayed in our pub- 
lic museum halls, while our specialists have 
delivered courses of popular lectures on the 
natural sciences under the auspices of the 
academy and the Ludwick Institute. 
In every way within its power the acad- 
emy has stood for a century as the advocate 
of the study of the natural sciences, ad- 
vanced or elementary, pure or applied. 
And this, our one hundredth anniver- 
sary, 1s a particularly happy birthday be- 
cause our precious natural history library 
of volumes unexcelled in America, and our 
priceless collections of mammals, birds, 
reptiles, fishes, shells, insects, plants, eth- 
nological and geological specimens unsur- 
passed in several of the departments and 
all of them rich in the type specimens of 
the early naturalists of America, having 
been for almost one hundred years exposed 
