454 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



i 



and in 1842 the place of meeting was Boston, and then, a& 

 already rehearsed, both the name and scope of the association, 

 were, at the solicitation of the naturalists, enlarged. Pres. 

 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 Philadelphia meeting; 

 had no thought of extending their association beyond geolo- 

 gists; but Prof. 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 American philosophical society as the oldest 

 of the kind in the country, that it would invite the scientific 

 men of the land to such a meeting as the one we are now enjoy- 

 ing; but the distinguished men of that society declined 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 accomplished 

 step by step. Had not the New York geologists 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 advance- 

 ment of science.^ 1 



The committee appointed by this association to consider the 

 matter of placing a memorial tablet on the Emmons house in 

 Albany N. Y. begs to submit the foregoing as evidence of the 

 prenatal history of the American association and to recommend 

 that this house, the home of the late Ebenezer Emmons, a man 

 of eminence in his profession, of untiring diligence and endur- 

 ing 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: 



IN THIS HOUSE, THE HOME OF 



DR EBENEZER EMMONS, 



THE FIRST FORMAL EFFORTS WERE MADE, IN 

 1838 AND 1839, TOWARD THE ORGANIZATION OF THE 



ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN GEOLOGISTS, 



THE PARENT BODY OF THE 



AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, 



BY WHOSE AUTHORITY THIS TABLET IS ERECTED. 



1901 



Address of Pres. Edward Hitchcock, as cited. 



