22 HISTORICAL SKETCH 



In 1892 Mr. Henry P. Emerson, Superintendent of Public 

 Schools became President and was succeeded in 1893 by Mr. 

 William H. Glenny who did much to further the successful 

 work of the Society. From 1896 to 1899 Dr. Roswell Park 

 was President, followed in that year by Dr. Lee H. Smith, 

 always most actively concerned in the Society's welfare. For 

 four years Dr. Smith was annually re-elected as President but 

 in 1903 was succeeded by Hon. T. Guilford Smith, LL. D. who 

 still continues in that office. 



Himself a Regent of the University of the State of New 

 York, and deeply interested in the cause of public education, 

 chairman of the Museum Committee in charge of the scientific 

 work of the State since his election in 1890, and a member as 

 well of many institutional boards and public societies, Mr. 

 Smith has done much to enlarge the scope of the Society's 

 connections and correspondence with other similar organizations 

 and to increase the extent of its public usefulness. 



The Field Club, which began in 1872 was the earliest 

 affiliated branch of the Society, but as the years went on other 

 branches were organized and gradually the Microscopical Club, 

 the Archaeological Club, the Agassiz Association, the Ento- 

 mological Section, the Conchological Section and the Elect- 

 rical Society came into existence as working parts of the parent 

 Society which furnished the gathering place for their meetings 

 and the generous use of its collections and apparatus for their 

 studies. A constant disposition has been shown to co operate 

 with any organization that has in view scientific research and 

 public instruction. 



Beginning with such names as those of Benjamin Silliman 

 and Louis Agassiz in 1862, the Society of Natural Sciences has 

 brought many famous men to Buffalo during the forty- six years 

 of its existence. Its lecture rooms have been crowded, often 

 to repletion, by the good people of our city eager to hear the 

 great men of science who have come, upon the Society's invita- 

 tion, to honor us with their presence and charm us by their 

 utterance. 



In addition to the first natural function of the Society, 

 the stimulation and encouragement of original research in the 

 various departments of Natural Science, — endeavers in which 

 it has been eminently successful, — its controlling purpose has 

 always been to further the educational work of Buffalo by every 



