626 SCIENCE. 
cellent excuse for a brief discussion of its 
ancestry.* 
For a century preceding the existence of 
our Association, Philadelphia had held 
foremost rank as a scientific center. It was 
in that city as early as 1743 that Benjamin 
Franklin, America’s first great scientist, 
had made futile effort to form a society ‘ of 
virtuosi or ingenious men residing in the 
different colonies to be called the American 
Philosophical Society.” + That society, 
however, as is well known, did organize in 
1769, and still survives, the oldest of scien- 
tific societies in the United States. An 
interesting evidence of the fact that Phila- 
delphia was a Mecca to scientific men is 
the statement that Priestley, on his arrival 
in New York in June, 1794, declined to 
give a course of lectures in that city, and 
proceeded at once to Philadelphia, where 
he received a complimentary address from 
the American Philosophical Society. 
In the early dawn of the new century 
came that wonderful development of science 
in New Haven, brought about by the influ- 
ence of the elder Silliman, who, by the way, 
first studied chemistry in Philadelphia 
under James Woodhouse. In the year 
1819, in the philosophical room of Yale 
College, there was organized the American 
Geological Society, of which, according to 
G. Brown Goode, our Association ‘is es- 
sentially a revival and continuation.’$ ‘Its 
members,’’ says the same authority, ‘‘ fol- 
*In The Chautauquen, Vol. XIII., p. 727, Septem- 
ber, 1891, there is a historical sketch of The Ameri- 
can Association for the Advancement of Science, by 
the present author, which may be of some interest to 
the student of the history of American science. 
+ The Origin of the National Scientific and Educa- 
tional Institutions of the United States, by G. Brown 
Goode. Annual Report of the American Historical 
Association for the year 1889. Washington, 1890, 
p. 54. 
{ The Development of Science in New York City, 
by Marcus Benjamin. Memorial History of the City 
of New York. New York, Vol. IV., p. 415. 
@ Goode, op. cit., p. 112. 
[N. S. Vou. X. No. 253. 
lowing European usage, appended to their 
names the symbols ‘ M.A.G.S.,’ and among 
these were many distinguished men, for at 
that time almost every one who studied any 
other branch of science, cultivated geology 
also.””* If we accept the American Geo- 
logical Society as our ancestor, it gives the 
American Association rank as the fifth old- 
est scientific body in the United States. 
As knowledge grew and education ad- 
vanced, the desire for frequent intercourse 
among men of science increased more and 
more, and in the rooms of the Franklin 
Institute in Philadelphia, on April 2, 1840, 
there was organized the Association of 
American Geologists. This society, which 
two years later became the Association of 
American Geologists and Naturalists, is offi- 
cially recognized as our progenitor, and the 
record of the eight meetings is given in the 
preliminary pages of our annual volume of 
proceedings. Of the founders of that Asso- 
ciation the venerable Martin H. Boyé still 
survives,j and in New York City, Oliver 
P. Hubbard, who served as its secretary in 
1844, remains to us a living witness of the 
mighty events that have occurred in the 
golden era of science. 
It will not be out of place, I am sure, to 
mention the influence of the National In- 
stitution for the promotion of science on 
the formation of our Association. It was 
that Institution, which in April, 1844, 
brought together in Washington City the 
first National Congress of scientific men— 
the first cosmopolitan assemblage of the 
kind which in any respect foreshadowed 
the great congresses of the American Asso- 
ciation in later years. { 
* Goode, op. cit., p. 112. 
T The Scientific American, Vol. LX XIV., p. 430, for 
December 12, 1896, under the title of ‘ A Pioneer of 
Science,’ gives an interesting account of Martin H. 
Boyé with a portrait. 
{ The First National Scientific Congress ( Washing- 
ton, April, 1844) and its connection with the organi- 
zation of the American Association. Report U. 8S. 
National Museum, 1897 (in press). 
