EARLY HISTORY OF THE SOCIETY 23 



1892 to 1907 Dr. 1. 0. White collected. the memhership dues and conserved the 

 funds without other recompense than the pleasure of service, and at some 

 personal cost. During his term the permanent fund, Qonsisting mainly of life 

 commutations, increased from $1,000 to $10,000, in spite of the large expense 

 of the Bulletin and of a scattered membership.^ 



Lihrary. — The printed matter sent us by the Exchanges accumulated rapidly 

 and its disposition became a problem. One suggestion was that we give it 

 away or distribute it in some manner. That would not have been courteous 

 to the donors. It was decided to retain it for a library, and after investiga- 

 tion and negotiation the Case Library of Cleveland, Ohio, accepted it on deposit 

 under conditions very favorable to the Society. The conditions of the contract 

 will be found in the Bulletin, volume 6, pages 427-428. The Secretary was 

 Acting Librarian until 1897, when the Council recommended that the oflBce of 

 Librarian be created, and Prof. H. P. Cushing was elected to the ofiice, which 

 he held to this year. The accessions to the library were published in the 

 Bulletin from volume 6, 1894, to volume 20, 1900, when the material was sold 

 to the Case Libraiy. At the date of sale the number of volumes, aside from 

 unbound pamphlets and maps, was over 2,000. 



Annual Dinner. — The annual dinner, which has become an established social 

 feature, had its beginning in 1891, at Columbus, Ohio. We were all housed 

 in one hotel, on American plan, and arranged for dinner together in ordinary. 

 Twenty-three Fellows were present and three visitors. Professor Emerson 

 was the toastmaster, and this was the occasion when he was discovered to be 

 the prince of toastmasters. It was a very informal affair, and because of its 

 lack of formality no one felt any embarrassment on being called, and nearly 

 every one spoke. 



t^mne of the Society. — The younger Fellows may not know, and the older 

 may have forgotten, that the original name of the Society, in the Provisional 

 Constitution, was the American Geological Society. If not so dignified, it was 

 a shorter name, and is now frequently used by the public in referring to us. 

 The change was made at the first meeting (see volume 1, pages 5, 13). We 

 quote from the minutes of that meeting: "It was also formally agreed that 

 Fellowship in the Society should be indicated by the initials 'F. G. S. A.,' and 

 it was recommended that this title be employed on all suitable occasions." 

 The recommendation has not been obeyed. How many Fellows have found 

 the "suitable occasion" when they wished or dared to append these initials to 

 their names? Or would the initials "F. A. G. S." have been more usable? 



Collection of Photographs. — This is a fine and interesting property of the 

 Society of which little notice has been taken in recent years. 



The suggestion of such collection was made in 1889 by H. S. Williams and 

 was brought to the attention of the Council by J. F. Kemp. A committee, 

 with Kemp as chairman, was appointed by the Council in April, 1890. The 

 report of that committee, made by J. S. Diller in December, 1890, will be 

 found, with a list of 290 photographs, in volume 2 of the Bulletin, pages 615- 

 630. Annual reports, with lists of accessions, were publislied in the Bulletin 

 up to 1901, when N. H. Darton, who had succeeded George P. Merrill as chair- 

 man, published a brochure of nearly 100 pages, giving a classified list of 1,418 



3 The figures in detail will be found in tlie Bulletin ; for the first ten years, vol. 10, 

 ). 416-420 ; for the period of Doctor White's service, vol. 18, pp. 564-567. 



