Annual Report.] 334 [May 3, 



I will now pass on to the proper subject of my Report, the 

 history of the last official year. 



An event, which, in its results, was very satisfactory to the 

 officers of this Society, occurred at the meeting when the 

 present President, Mr. T. T. Bouve, offered his resignation. 

 I allude to the approbation of the policy which had gov- 

 erned the Society during his presidency, expressed by many 

 of our most influential members. The officrs of the Society 

 felt themselves to be identified with the President in this 

 matter; and, consequently, the ovation which he received, 

 and the absolutely unanimous vote of a large and select 

 meeting of the Society, requesting him to withdraw his res- 

 ignation, were peculiarly grateful to them. 



Mr. Bouve, in what were intended as his valedictory re- 

 marks, most generously attributed to me the authorship of 

 the plan of operations by which the Society had been gov- 

 erned during his administration, but did not do. himself full 

 justice in this and subsequent statements. If he, as Presi- 

 dent, had listened to the advice of several of the most expe- 

 rienced members of this Society, naturally his most reliable 

 and trusted advisers, we should to-day, as in former years, 

 have had no settled policy, and no plan would have been in 

 existence. Fortunately, he preferred to judge of all matters 

 presented to the Council upon their intrinsic merits; and the 

 results have more than justified this course. It has been 

 successfully demonstrated that the heterogeneous elements of 

 a Society like ours can be united upon a common policy, and 

 both move and act more effectually in consequence. I could 

 readily dilate upon this theme, but do not feel disposed to 

 obscure the fact that a movement of great importance to the 

 future interests of science in America has been successfully 

 accomplished, by means of the influence and independent 

 judgment of our chief administrative officer. 



Early in October the Council, in response to a communica- 

 tion from the Agent of the Centennial Commissioners of the 



