24 The Chicago Academy of Sciences. 



destruction of all the results of the labors of a life- 

 time. Many persons had labored faithfully for the 

 Academy from its very organization. They had 

 watched its steady growth month by month, and year 

 by year, and felt a just pride in all it had accomplished. 

 It was very dear to them, for their labor had helped 

 to make it. Their work had been one for love of 

 science, and they had acted from a heartfelt desire to 

 benefit their fellow-man. In that building - were the 

 collections of the very founder of the institution. 

 Mr. Robert Kennicott, who worked so faithfully, but 

 died before he could see the great good he had done. 

 There were also the collections, library, publications and 

 valuable manuscripts of Dr. William Stimpson. His loss 

 was beyond computation. It seemed as though all the 

 labor of his life was gone. In a letter to the secretary 

 he says in reply to some words of sympathy, he had, 

 indeed, lost heavily — in fact his all — the product of 

 days and nights of toil in many parts of the world for 

 the past twenty years. He had looked forward to the 

 publication of his own works by the government, and 

 consoled himself with the thought that although he 

 could not leave his children wealth, he could yet leave 

 them this assurance, that he had nevertheless not been 

 idle. But a fatality seemed to attend him. He had 

 just completed, by his trip in August, the gathering in 

 of all his materials — from his father's house, from 

 Agassiz's, from Ilchester, and from the Smithsonian, 

 just in time for the lire. 'But had I lost twice as much 

 I shall never regret coming to Chicago, for I have 

 found there noble and generous friends, not only to 

 myself, but friends of science such as no other city in 

 America can boast; and of more value to me than 

 worldly possessions will be the memory of the friendly 

 experiences I have had with yourself and the other 

 trustees and the friends of the Academy, while we to- 

 gether built up a monument which, though now leveled 



