1 



; 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE CENTENARY MEETING. xxi 



At the call of the Chair the Recording Secretary read the minutes of the last 

 meeting and the minute of the first Recording Secretary, Dr. Camilla Mac- 

 mahon Mann, defining the date of foundation as follows 



Year of the United States the 37th. 



Saturday, March 21, 1812. 



In Committee agreed: The year of the institution shall commence at the 

 present natural evolution: the spring equinox, 21st of March and the year shall 

 be named according to the era of the United States of America in the principal 

 city of which we assemble. 



Additions to the museum and library were announced. 



The Corresponding Secretary reported on letters received since the last 



meeting. 



The Publication Committee, in conjunction with the Centenary Sub-com- 

 mittee on Printing and Publication, reported the titles of papers presented for 

 consideration and also announced the details of works to be issued in connection 



with the celebration. 



The Chair announced the death this morning of Thomas Harrison Mont- 

 gomery, Jr., Ph.D 



Under the head of "verbal communications" the Recording Secretary gave 



some " Reminiscences " of his fifty years' connection with the Academy as Assist- 

 ant Librarian, Librarian, and Recording Secretary, his first list of accessions to 



the library being dated February 4, 1862. 



It had been his intention to glance rapidly at a few of the interesting char- 

 acters in the first half century of the Academy's history: such men as Maelure, 

 Say, Troost, Lesueur, Morton, Correa da Serra, Bonaparte, and Keating, but 

 the time at his disposal confined him to some of those he had personally known 



since 1862. a 



It was a cause of keenest regret that he had not recorded the recollections 



of a few of the contemporaries of the founders who still survived when he entered 



on the scene, but it could be readily believed that in the boy's most sanguine 



moments he had never entertained the thought that fifty years later 



occasion of the Academy's Centenary, he would be called on to deplore his lack of 



foresight before such an audience. 



He had seen George Ord, the biographer of Alexander Wilson and one of the 

 ex-presidents, three or four times; Jacob Peirce, elected a member in 1813, two 

 years before Ord; Isaac Hays, who had practically kept the early Journal alive 

 by his energy, tact, and zeal; Titian R. Peale, the intimate friend of Say and 

 Maelure, all cordially willing to talk of the early days. 



Dr. Nolan then spoke of the beginning of his work as an untrained assistant 

 in the library and the unvarying kindness and consideration he had experienced 

 from all the men met with at the time but especially from his dear chief, J. 

 Dickinson Sergeant, and his beloved future preceptor, Joseph Leidy. 



1 See note in advance of memoir. 



the 



