BouvS.] 248 [March 15, 



fore its collections should be arranged according to some easily un- 

 derstood and comprehensive plan, illustrating the general laws of 

 natural science unencumbered by details. All the different depart- 

 ments should be connected as closely as possible, and form together 

 a series of lessons in the structure of the earth and its constituent 

 parts, and in the organization of the plants and animals living upon 

 its surface." 



The adoption of the plan then proposed by no means implied the 

 belief that the Society could rearrange the collections of the differ- 

 ent departments so as to bring them into the desired natural 

 sequence, but only committed it to be governed by such general 

 views whenever found practicable. In truth no one saw how it would 

 be possible to do it. Even President Wyman, though fully recog- 

 nizing the great importance of such general arrangement, expressed 

 to me that he did not think such rearrangement practicable. 



I now come to the time when by your suffrage I was elected Presi- 

 dent. After the brief review I have given of some of the events 

 preceding, and a recognition on your part of my long experience in 

 the Society, you will perhaps be the better able to appreciate the 

 reasons which I will give why I felt willing and glad, as before ex- 

 pressed, to assume the duties of the office, and why I have been glad 

 to retain it until the present time. I felt greatly indebted to the 

 Society for the personal good it had been to me, enabling me through 

 its means to acquire knowledge not otherwise within my reach, and 

 I thought that I perhaps might be better able to serve its interests by 

 accepting the Presidency than I otherwise could. I had to a certain 

 extent been made the confidant of our great benefactor, Dr. Walker, 

 and knew undoubtedly better than any one else, excepting Dr. Jeffries 

 Wyman, all his wishes concerning the Society, wishes that I felt it to 

 be my duty to have respected and followed as they deserved to be; 

 none of them being otherwise than such as experience has since 

 demonstrated to have been wise. His great interest in true scientific 

 progress, his earnest desire that the great mass of the people should 

 participate in the advantages of a higher culture impressed me 

 strongly, and would have alone inclined me to take any position in 

 the Society where I could exert an influence in leading it to action in 

 harmony with his views. Furthermore, I had a strong and abiding 

 belief that the Society might be made one of the most popular char- 

 acter, available for the instruction of all who should seek its aid, and 

 even be a temptation to thousands of wayfarers, leading them to fol- 



