APRIL 5, 1912] 
conditions of unparalleled health, that the 
sacrifice of 5,000 American troops during 
the Spanish-American war was finally 
found to have been due to the transmission 
of bacillus typhosus by the common house 
fly, and that this knowledge was so judi- 
ciously applied by our army surgeons that 
a recent considerable mobilization of our 
soldiers was entirely exempt from that dis- 
ease, and some faint conception will be 
reached of the immense debt that humanity 
owes to the patient workers in the field of 
pure science. 
President George Washington, in his 
first message to Congress, said: 
Nor am I less persuaded that you will agree 
with me in the opinion that there is nothing more 
deserving your patronage than the promotion of 
science and laboratories, knowing in every country 
it is the surest basis of public happiness, one in 
which the measures of the government receive their 
impressions so immediately from the sense of the 
community as ours it is proportionately essential. 
The mass of congratulatory letters with 
their autographs of our foreign co-workers 
received from the great institutions of the 
world relating to this our one hundredth 
birthday, can not be read, owing to a lack 
of time. 
Before closmg I have a pleasant duty to 
perform in behalf of the Building Com- 
mittee. At the request of those entrusted 
with planning and erecting the building 
improvements, made possible by the com- 
monwealth of Pennsylvania, as chairman 
of said committee, I hand over to the cor- 
porate body, under the title of The Acad- 
emy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 
this building completed for its use, which 
comprises fire-proof stacks for its library, 
a reading room, lecture hall and work 
room. In the rhythmic language of an- 
other, I reverently invoke the blessings of 
the God of Nature upon this temple of the 
natural sciences. 
SCIENCE 
525 
Great God of nature, let these halls 
The hidden things of earth make plain; 
Let knowledge trumpet forth her calls, 
And wisdom speak, but not in vain. 
Help us to read with humble mind, 
Thy larger scriptures day by day— 
True bread of life! O be thou kind, 
If, erring, we should go astray. 
For deep resounding unto deep, 
Declares the wonders of thy plan; 
Life struggling from its crystal sleep 
Finds glorious goal at last in man. 
The mysteries of the eternal laws, 
Are but the shadows of thy might. 
God, ruling all in final cause, 
Enshrines the world in love and light! 
—Harvey Watts 
At the conclusion of the address it was 
explained that the routine of a stated meet- 
ing would then go on, in the belief that an 
illustration of the formula by means of 
which the academy had transacted its busi- 
ness for one hundred years would be of 
interest to those familiar with the results 
which made it worth while to hold the cele- 
bration on which they were entering. 
At the call of the chair the recording 
secretary read the minutes of the last meet- 
ing, and also the minute of the first record- 
ing secretary, Dr. Camillus Macmahon 
Mann, an exiled Irishman, defining the 
date of the foundation of the society. The 
latter is as follows: 
Year of the United States the 37th, 
March 21st. 
In committee agreed: The year of the Institu- 
tion shall commence at the present natural evolu- 
tion: the spring equinox, 21st of March and the 
year shall be named according to the era of the 
United States of America in the principle city of 
which we assemble. 
Additions to the museum and library 
were announced. 
The corresponding secretary reported on 
the letters received. 
The report of the council, confined al- 
most entirely to a consideration of the ar- 
