taxidermist was kept for a time to care for the material which was presented only through the advance of his salary by members month by month, one of the first principles in museum administration was practically recognized before the end of April in the authorization of a collecting trip in search of some important fossils that were then being talked of; and Mr. Chouteau several times allowed a representative of the academy to accompany his parties into the northwest.
In gathering the nucleus of a library, which went hand in hand with the formation of a museum, letters were sent to learned bodies which published scientific matter. In the course of this correspondence it was learned that the valuable Smithsonian 'Contributions to Knowledge' could be sent only to societies able to offer an equivalent in published matter, which clearly brought before the new academy the exchange value of such publications; and even before this point was so emphasized, a committee had been appointed to consider the question of undertaking some publication on the part of the new academy. At the meeting of August 25, 1856, preliminary steps were taken toward launching this venture, though the members present seem to have been in doubt not only regarding its financial possibility, but as to the productive activity of the small working membership. At the next meeting, however, the practicability of undertaking the publication of papers was shown, and doubt as to the immediate power of the academy to furnish creditable matter for publication was removed by Dr. Shumard's offer of a paper by himself and Dr. John Evans, on new species of fossil shells from the Cretaceous formation of Nebraska. Other papers were soon handed in, and the initial number of the new 'Transactions' was issued early in 1857. It contained, in addition to the charter, constitution and by-laws, journal of proceedings, etc., this paper by Evans and Shumard, a description of a new Productus by Prout, an account of glycerine by Schiel, a paper on phyllotaxis by Hilgard, an account of certain Mastodon remains by Koch, a study of the inscriptions on a brick from Nineveh by Seyffarth, an account of Indian stone graves in Illinois by Wislizenus, descriptions of new crinoids by Shumard, an account of the geological formations underlying St. Louis, as shown by the Belcher artesian well borings, by Litton[1] and the first of a long and important series of local meteorological records by Engelmann and Wislizenus.
There does not appear to have been much change in the academy during the first few years of its life. Before the end of the first year, Engelmann, to whom the elaboration of the Cactaceae collected on the United States and Mexican boundary survey had been entrusted, so
- ↑ Dr. Abram Litton (Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 12: xxiv) was elected at one of the first meetings after the organization of the academy and was the first thoroughly trained chemist west of the Mississippi. He was made chairman of the committee on chemistry.
