of Sirius, the brightest star in the heavens, was revealed, and the mathematical prediction of the cause of his perturbations verified? Was it not by a Yale College professor that the showers of shooting-stars were first scientifically discussed, on the occasion of the grand American display of that meteoric phenomenon in 1833? Did we not join in the investigations respecting terrestrial magnetism instituted by European governments at the suggestion of Humboldt, and contribute our quota to the results obtained? Did not the Congress of the United States vote a money-grant to carry into effect the invention of the electric telegraph? Does not the published flora of the United States show that something has been done in botany? Have not very important investigations been made here on the induction of magnetism in iron, the effect of magnetic currents on one another, the translation of quantity into intensity, and the converse? Was it not here that the radiations of incandescence were first investigated, the connection of increasing temperature with increasing refrangibility shown, the distribution of light, heat, and chemical activity in the solar spectrum ascertained, and some of the fundamental facts in spectrum analysis developed long before general attention was given to that subject in Europe? Here the first photograph of the moon was taken, here the first of the diffraction spectrums was produced, here the first portraits of the human face were made—an experiment that has given rise to an important industrial art!
Of our own special science, chemistry, it may truly be affirmed that nowhere are its most advanced ideas, its new conceptions, better understood or more eagerly received. But how useless would it be for me to attempt a description in these few moments of what Prof. Silliman, in the work to which I have already referred, found that he could not include on more than 100 closely-printed pages, though he proposed merely to give the names of American chemists and the titles of their works! It would be equally useless and indeed an invidious task to offer a selection; but this may be said, that among the more prominent memoirs there are many not inferior to the foremost that the chemical literature of Europe can present. How unsatisfactory, then, is this brief statement I have made of what might be justly claimed for American science! Had it been ten times as long, and far more forcibly offered, it would still have fallen short of completeness. I still should have been open to the accusation of not having done justice to the subject.
Have those who gloat over the shortcomings of American science ever examined the Coast Survey reports, those of the Naval Observatory, the Smithsonian contributions, those of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Science, those of the American Philosophical Society, the Lyceum of Natural History, and our leading scientific periodicals? Have they ever looked at the numerous reports pub-
