3U 



What Made the Institute Possible. 



due portion and bo able to assort their authority ; while in another 

 aspect, it would be of individual and personal value to have some, 

 medium for mutual acquaintance : i n « 1 discussion. Hence the motive 

 which must have originally drawn these classes of men together into 

 one association; and by their united talent maintained it at a time 

 when other cities, which had little change or history, were still groping 

 blindly w ith the problems of the lower education, unsuspicious of any 

 higher plane of thought than might be made to extend beyond their 

 own limits for the enlightenment of the world. 



How the Institute has fulfilled its trust, it seems to me, calls for no 

 doubting answer. Those who regard us. as I have suggested, merely 

 in the light of some twenty or thirty quiet gentlemen, meeting to discuss 

 abstruse themes of no especial importance, and afterward accept each 

 others congratulations, look upon only one side of the picture. For 

 the other and more truthful side, I would point to the nine or ten 

 volumes of our Transactions, as affording every necessary justification 

 for our existence. These volumes do not profess to contain all the 

 papers which are read before us. There is much that comes to us 

 with the intention merely to entertain, and without any anticipation 

 of reaching the immortality of print. But there are occasionally 

 papers of much scientific and historical interest, as well as exhibiting 

 great research ; and these we carefully preserve, not for the ornamen- 

 tation of our shelves, but for the possible instruction of posterity. 

 And it is in this feature, more especially, that the merit of our insti- 

 tution most abundantly shows itself ; in the proper record of what 

 may be called new science. We occupy an indefinite territory, which 

 is supposed to be bounded by the circuits of other societies, of a sim- 

 ilar condition and purpose of existence. "Whatever is novel and 

 important in our range of topics we are expected to gather up and 

 place in permanence. If new developments in the structure of the 

 earth are made, our geologist describes' them, and in their proper 



his note of them. In natural history, botany and the kindred 

 sciences, we have our learned members ready and able to record their 

 unqm -tinned observations. These are the papers which we publish, 

 and which, when gathered into volumes, we exchange with other socie- 

 ties ; collecting thereby, as far as practicable, a knowledge of the 

 physical progress of the Avorld. If there were a sufficient number of 

 such societies in existence to cover in their jurisdiction the whole 

 surface of the earth, our means of knowledge would really be 



