Introduction and Historical Overview 
Alan E. Leviton and Michele L. Aldrich 
Priority of discovery, the joy and bane of scientists since time immemorial, played a significant role in the 
early history of the Academy and was the raison d’etre for initiating its Proceedings publication series. 
On 13 June 1853, William P. Gibbons exhibited specimens of a viviparous California fish at the weekly 
meeting of the fledgling California Academy of Natural Sciences, and he announced that he would shortly 
present a paper about it (Leviton & Aldrich 1997:19). Six months later, at the meeting held 5 January 1854, 
Gibbons spoke at length about viviparous fishes and again on 15 May 1854, presented yet another paper in 
which he gave descriptions of four new species, Hysterocarpus traskii, Hyperprosopon argenteus, 
Cymatogaster aggregata, and C. minimus , and this was followed on 22 May with the description of three addi¬ 
tional new species (Leviton & Aldrich 1997:25, 29-30). A few months earlier, on 27 March 1854, Academy 
Corresponding Secretary Gibbons read a letter received from Spencer Fullerton Baird, then Assistant Secretary 
of the Smithsonian Institution, and to whom tear-sheets of the articles pertaining to the Academy meetings had 
been sent, 1 in reference to the priority of discovery of viviparous fishes, in which Baird noted that Professor 
Louis Agassiz of Harvard College had published on the same group of fishes. In a like manner, the Academy 
received a letter from Dr. John LeConte, then corresponding secretary of the Academy of Natural Sciences of 
Philadelphia, and a copy of a botanical description of Wellingtonia gigantia by John Lindley in the Gardeners ’ 
Chronicle. In both instances, Academy members Gibbons and Dr. Albert Kellogg challenged the priority claim¬ 
ing that each had published descriptions of the new fishes and of the plant, which Kellogg had named 
Washingtonia , before their Eastern U.S. and British counterparts. The problem, as Baird pointed out, was both 
Gibbons’ and Kellogg’s remarks were printed in local weekly newspapers and not in a format that had become 
acceptable to “scientific men” everywhere (Leviton & Aldrich 1997:29-35). Thus, a committee was estab¬ 
lished to look into the matter of a formal publication to encompass the “Proceedings and Transactions” of the 
Academy. On 25 September 1854, 250 copies of the first four-page signature of the Proceedings of the 
California Academy of Natural Sciences was printed by the Congregationlist weekly newspaper, The Pacific , 
from type that had been set to print the reports in its weekly paper. Copies were then sent to Baird who 
acknowledged receipt on 10 October 1854 and stated, “Dear Sir: I had much pleasure today in answering your 
letter enclosing the first sheet of Proceedings of the Academy. In [such] a form there will be no difficulty in 
[maintaining] any [priority] which may exist at the time of publication, although you will find many [who] will 
contest the validity of any [announcement] in a mere weekly newspaper.” (Leviton & Aldrich 1997:33). In 
passing, it must be noted that the dispute over priority with respect to the viviparous fishes was amicably 
resolved when Louis Agassiz most courteously acknowledged Gibbons’ priority of announcement. 
Inasmuch as the first issue of the Proceedings of the California Academy of Natural Sciences [ser. 1, 
1(1):3—6] contains an article by William Orville Ayres, “Descriptions of species of fish, believed to be new” 
(Ayres 1854:3^), the question of dates of publication becomes a matter of concern. Mary K. Curran (later 
a.k.a. Katharine Brandegee), in considering the dates of publication of botanical names first announced at the 
early meetings of the Academy, notably by Albert Kellogg, observed “The first volume of the Proceedings of 
the California Academy was published in the columns of the Pacific, a weekly journal still in existence in this 
city [San Francisco], and afterward reprinted from the same type for the use of the Society. The date of publi¬ 
cation therefore for any species contained in this volume, is four days later than that of the meeting at which 
it was announced.” (Curran 1885, Bull. Calif Acad. Sci. 1(3; 28 Feb.): 128-129). However, when considering 
the dates of issuance of the early four-page signatures in formal Proceedings format, they were printed some¬ 
time after the appearance of the text in The Pacific and before the issuance of the next four-page signature. 
Thus, signatures including pages 3-6, which contains remarks presented at Academy meetings held on 4 and 
11 September 1854, and signature pages 7-10, which includes remarks presented at meetings held on 18 and 
25 September and 2 October 1854, were separately printed a short time after the date of the last-cited meeting 
in each. This sequence continued for another month or so (signature pages 11-14, containing remarks from 
1 Baird’s scrapbook containing the clippings is now housed in the Library of Congress. It is grouped in the main collection with the 
Academy’s Proceedings at the beginning of the Proceedings series. 
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