142 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VIII. No. 188. 



and collaborators it is anticipated will fol- 

 low this desirable change." 



The first meeting of the Association was 

 held in Philadelphia, beginning September 

 20, 1848. The meeting was called to or- 

 der by Professor W. B. Eogers, who was 

 the last President of the ' Association of 

 American Geologists and Naturalists.' A 

 Committee had been appointed at the Bos- 

 ton meeting to draft a Constitution and 

 Rules for the new body, and the report of 

 this Committee was the first business con- 

 sidered. It was unanimously adopted and 

 at 4 p. m. the American Association 

 for the Advancement of Science was for- 

 mally in session, under the Presidency of 

 Wm. C. Redfield, who had been elected at 

 the Boston meeting in accordance with the 

 excellent practice of the earlier Association. 



Some features of the first Constitution are 

 worthy of notice. The rules relating to 

 membership were a little peculiar. Certain 

 persons were allowed to become members 

 on their own volition, by signing the Con- 

 stitution. They were members of other 

 scientific or learned bodies publishing 

 transactions, ' Collegiate Professors of Na- 

 tural History, Physics, Chemistry, Mathe- 

 matics and Political Economy, and of the 

 Theoretical and Applied Sciences gener- 

 ally ;' also civil engineers, architects 

 and others who have been employed on 

 public works. Persons not included in 

 these classes might become members on 

 nomination by the Standing Committee 

 and election by a vote of the majority of 

 the members present. 



The honor of reading the first paper be- 

 fore the Association belongs to Peter A. 



Browne, LL.D., of Philadelphia, President 

 of the Society for the Development of the 

 Mineral Resources of the United States. 

 The title of this paper was ' Some Notice 

 of the Fossil Cephalopodes Belemnosepia, 

 long known by the name of Belemnite, and 

 of the Diphosphate of Iron, called ' Mulli- 

 cite,' found together at MuUica Hill,' from 

 which it will appear that the programs of 

 the early days ' bristled ' in much the same 

 way as at present. On Friday evening, 

 September 22, 1848, the Association held 

 its first public, general session, a meeting 

 that the modern program-maker would 

 have set down as ' complimentary to the 

 city of Philadelphia,' and complimentary 

 to their intelligence it was, for its program 

 included, in addition to the address of the 

 retiring President (which was characterized 

 as an ' extremely interesting and spirited 

 discourse ') , a paper on ' The General Prin- 

 ciples of Analytical Mechanics ' by Benja- 

 min Peirce, and one on ' The Classifica- 

 tion of the Animal Kingdom ' by Louis 

 Agassiz. 



The Association adjourned on Monday, 

 September 25th, with an enrolled mem- 

 bership of 461. The list begins with the 

 name of Professor Stephen Alexander, of 

 Princeton, and ends with that of Professor 

 Ira Young, of Hanover, father of the dis- 

 tinguished astronomer, Professor C. A. 

 Young, of Princeton. Active in the busi- 

 ness of the meeting was Professor James 

 Hall, of Albany, whom all members of the 

 Association still delight to honor at its an- 

 nual sessions. Of the total four hundred 

 and sixty-one, besides Professor Hall, only 

 six survive — Samuel L. Abbott, Martin H. 



