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XV111 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE CENTENARY MEETING. 



There 



In anthropology the works of Morton and later of Harrison Allen are famous. 

 The splendid collection of human crania brought together by the former is 

 historic. Archeological and ethnological collections comprise the material 

 gathered by Samuel Stehman Haldeman in North America and in the land 



of the Aztecs, Mayas, and Incas. 



are also the Wm. S. Vaux collection rich in specimens of the neolithic 

 age of Europe, the Robt. H. Lamborn collection and the Clarence B. Moore 



collection. , x , 



Mr. Moore's collection embodies the results of more than twenty years 



exploration in the southern United States and consists of thousands of speci- 

 mens of the vanished art industries of our southern aborigines now saved for 

 all time in the museum and in the fine series of reports published in the Journal. 

 We have extensive mineral collections, foremost among which is that of Wil- 

 liam S. Vaux, noted for the beauty of its specimens and the completeness of 



the series. 



There are the famous Febiger collection of diatoms, the Chapman study 



series of marine animals, and others which lack of time forces me to pass over. 



So too there are many other former members of the Academy who by their 

 scientific attainments or their loyal and generous support have helped to build 

 up the institution, while among the living members are men who are, by their 

 work and devotion, fully as deserving of notice as those who have gone before. 



Helmholtz, in 1862, said, " In fact men of science form, as it were, an organized 

 army, laboring on behalf of the whole nation, and generally under its direction 

 and at its expense, to augment the stock of such knowledge as may serve to 

 promote industrial enterprise, to increase wealth, to adorn life, to improve 

 political and social relations, and to further the moral development of individual 

 citizens. After the immediate practical results of their work we forbear to 

 inquire; that we leave to the uninstructed. We are convinced that whatever 

 contributes to the knowledge of the forces of nature or the powers of the human 

 mind is worth cherishing, and may, in its own due time, bear practical fruits, 

 very often where we should least have expected it." 



It has been truly said that the distinctive feature of pure science is that "it 

 is not remunerative; the practical rewards and returns are not the immediate 

 ends in view." The work of Tyndall and Pasteur, however, on fermentation, 

 pursued in the beginning purely because of its abstract scientific interest, later 

 came to have enormous economic importance and led to the scientific investi- 

 gations that have within recent years become of incalculable value to mankind. 



: The knowledge gathered by the abstract naturalist and the tabulation of 

 scientific data concerning all forms of animal and vegetable life have a very close 



and direct relation to public health and preventive medicine. A long list 



of diseases might be compiled in which insects are directly responsible for 

 the transmission of the bacterium or parasite life causing disease. It is now 

 a matter of almost universal knowledge that malarial fever is transmitted from 



