354 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 349. 



During the prosecution of the Geological Survey of 

 the State of New York the need of the geologists for 

 consultation and interchange of view with others en- 

 gaged in official geologic work led to the suggestion 

 of an organization of a body of American Geologists. 

 It appears that Lieutenant W. W. Mather, one of the 

 New York geologistp, suggested the subject of such a 

 meeting to the Board of Geologists in November, 

 1838. He wrote : 



Would it not be well to suggest the propriety 

 of a meeting of the geologists and other scientific 

 men of our country at some central point next fall, 

 say in New York or Philadelphia? There are many 

 questions in our geology that will receive new light 

 from friendly discussion and the combined observa- 

 tion of various individuals who have noted them in 

 different parts of our country. Such a meeting has 

 been suggested by Professor Hitchcock and to me it 

 seems desirable. It would undoubtedly be an advan- 

 tage not only to science, but to the several surveys 

 that are now in progress and that may in future be 

 organized. It would tend to make known our scien- 

 tific men to each other personally, give them more 

 confidence in each other and cause them to concen- 

 trate their observations on those questions that are of 

 interest either in a scientific or economical point of 

 view. More questions may be satisfactorily settled 

 in a day by oral discussion in such a body than in a 

 year by writing and publication. (Letter from W. 

 W. Mather to the Geological Board of New York, 

 dated November 9, 1838, and addressed to Professor 

 Emmons.) 



It appears herein that the suggestion of this meet- 

 ing was originally made by President Edward Hitch- 

 cock, of Massachusetts, who was the first to receive 

 the appointment as geologist of the First District 

 of New York from Governor Marcy. President 

 Hitchcock has said in regard to the suggestion made 

 by Lieutenant Mather : " As to the credit he has here 

 given me of having previously suggested the subject 

 I can say only that I had been in the habit for several 

 years of making this meeting of scientific men a sort 

 of hobby in my correspondence with such." (Ad- 

 dress of President Edward Hitchcock at the inaugu- 

 ration of Geological Hall, at Albany, August 27, 1856. 

 Tenth annual report New York State Cabinet of 

 Natural History, 1857, page 23. ) 



Lieutenant Mather's letter to the Board of Geolo- 

 gists was taken up for consideration at a meeting 

 held November 20, 1838, at the house of Dr. Ebenezer 

 Emmons, corner of High street and Hudson avenue, 

 Albany. (See documents herewith appended being 

 A, a statement dictated by Professor James Hall, 

 August 24, 1896, and B, a statement dictated by 

 Ebenezer Emmons, Jr., February, 1900.) The action 

 taken by the geologists was one of unanimous ap- 

 proval of the proposition, and Lardner Vanuxem of 

 the Third District was commissioned to open com- 



munication with other geologists, especially with 

 President Hitchcock, with reference to carrying this 

 project into effect. 



The undertaking was not immediately successful 

 and at a meeting held in the autumn of 1839 the pur- 

 poses of the geological board were reiterated. This 

 meeting was also held at Dr. Emmons' house, the four 

 geologists and the paleontologist being present, and 

 also Ebenezer Emmons, Jr., who still survives. As a 

 result of the second undertaking on the part of the 

 New York geologists a meeting was called in Phila- 

 delphia for April, 1840, where and when the organiza- 

 tion of the Association of American Geologists was 

 carried into effect. The following year the Association 

 again met in Philadelphia, at which time the mem- 

 bership of the body was largely increased, and in 1842 

 the place of meeting was Boston and then, as already 

 rehearsed, the name and the scope of the Association 

 were, at the solicitation of the naturalists, both en- 

 larged. President Hitchcock, addressing the New 

 York public interested in the outcome of the work of 

 their geologists, makes the following statement in the 

 address already quoted : 



It may be thought that the New York geologists in 

 their invitation and the members of that first Phila- 

 delphia meeting had no thought of extending their 

 Association beyond geologists ; but Professor Mather's 

 language just quoted speaks of ' a meeting of the 

 geologists and other scientific men of our country, ' 

 thus showing what were his aspirations, and they 

 were shared by all of us who had anything 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 Ameri- 

 can Philosophical Society as the oldest of the kind in 

 the country, that it would invite the scientific men of 

 the laud to such-a meeting as the one we are now en- 

 joying ; but the distinguished men of that Society de- 

 cline 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 ac- 

 complished step by step. Had not the New York geol- 

 ogists 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. 

 (President Hitchcock's address, ut. cit. ) 



The committee appointed by this Association to 

 consider the matter of placing a memorial tablet 

 upon the Emmons' house in Albany, N. Y., begs to 

 submit the foregoing as evidence of the prenatal his- 

 tory of the American Association and to recommend 

 that this house, the home of the late Ebenezer Em- 

 mons, a man of eminence in his profession, of untir- 

 ing diligence and enduring patience, be permanently 

 marked by a tablet setting forth the interest of that 

 spot to the history of the Association. It is suggested 

 that such tablet bear the following inscription : 



