24 



Annual Address, 



men, that the great task of giving it form and character, 

 and of putting it into action, should have been committed 

 to one so admirably qualified to stamp it with the impress 

 of his own moral and intellectual greatness. 



Time would fail me to tell of all the distinguished men 

 who have contributed by their labors and influence to the 

 objects of the Institute ; of Ferguson, a favorite pupil of the 

 elder DeWitt, a scholar and a poet as well as a man of 

 science, long in important public service on the boundary 

 commission, on the coast survey, and in the National 

 Observatory ; of Daniel D. Barnard, eminent for his intel- 

 lectual gifts, his dignity of character, his literary culture, 

 and his career of high public service as a legislator and a 

 diplomatist ; of Dr. Howard Townsend, one of our most 

 faithful and valuable contributors, taken from us all too 

 soon for our wishes, but not until he had won his place in * 

 our regard as a scholar, a man of science, and an accom- 

 plished Christian gentleman. 



Others there are who still remain to us, carrying for- 

 ward our proper work, whose names I may not speak here, 

 and long may we have the privilege of leaving them un- 

 spoken. Our published transactions, however, will, I think, 

 show, that the contributions and discussions of the last 

 twenty years have been not less valuable than those of any 

 previous time. In the department of geology and pale- 

 ontology one stands among us, whom we need not name, 

 but whose fame is known to all the scientific world ; who 

 for years had labored untiringly for the objects of the 

 Institute, and who has constantly given interest to our 

 meetings and enriched our journals with the earliest re- 

 ports of those researches which have made him one of the 

 highest living authorities in the department of science to 

 which he is specially devoted. 



And now looking back upon the history of our society 

 through the four-score years since its first organization, 



