ing which he cites an admirable passage from Dr. Bostock: "Physiologists have in general been more inclined to form hypotheses than to execute experiments, and it has necessarily ensued from this unfortunate propensity that their science has advanced more slowly than perhaps any other department of natural philosophy." Unfortunately, this truth was not fully recognized by the members of the Columbian Chemical Society.
A contemporary journal (New York Medical Repository) reviews the Memoirs in the following quaint style: "It is highly gratifying to behold a band of worthies like those before us laboring to analyze the compounds which they find ready made, to form by synthesis new combinations in the laboratory, and thereby to deduce correct doctrines from the facts which are disclosed. We cordially congratulate them on their noble occupation and on the progress they have made. We hope they will be persevering and undaunted; and if from this beginning there shall arise great improvements in theoretical disquisition, as well as in economical exercise, we shall rejoice with a mingled glow of amicable and patriotic sentiment."
3. The Delaware Chemical and Geological Society was organized at Delhi, Delaware County, New York State, September 6, 1821. The first meeting was held at the hotel of G. H. Edgerton, in the village. The president was Charles A. Foote, and the vice-president the Rev. James P. F. Clark. The society was composed of "between forty and fifty well-informed and respectable inhabitants of the county." It had for its object the improvement of the members in literature and science, especially in mineralogy and chemistry. The members planned to form a library, and they made a collection of the minerals and rocks of the region, but the society was not long sustained.
In reviewing the condition of chemical science in the United States as indicated by the membership and achievements of these early societies, we note that those who held the most prominent places were handicapped by the necessity of devoting a large part of their intellectual energy to topics quite outside of the domain of chemistry itself. The active members were either busy with the art of healing or with teaching several branches of the physical and natural sciences, and too often chemistry was regarded in the colleges as a kind of side issue or appendix to the more important subjects of instruction. This was caused by the necessity of earning a competence at a time when there was no opportunity of reaping pecuniary rewards by skill as an analyst or by the application of science to the manufacture of products involving chemical knowledge. Indeed, in default of this stimulus to laboratory work it is not surprising that the papers read to the societies were largely either reviews of the grand discoveries made by
