Bridges, John Phillips, William Gambel, Timothy Abbott Conrad, and Samuel Stehman Haldeman.
At the close of 1849, Mr. Hembel declined a renomination for the Presidency. He was succeeded by Dr. Morton who had, with few exceptions, presided at the meetings during the entire incumbency of his predecessor. Dr. Morton's position as Vice-President was filled by the election of Dr. E. Egglesfield Griffith, the accomplished author of the Medical Botany. He died in 1850.
The election of Dr. Morton to the Presidency was a fitting recognition, not only of more than a quarter of a century's devoted service, but also of his distinguished rank as one of the world's most accomplished ethnologists. He was to enjoy the well-merited honor, which was the ultimate expression of the Academy's appreciation of his work, for less than eighteen months. He presided at a meeting for the last time on May 6, 1851, and died on the 15th of that month in his fiftieth year, after an illness of four days. His first work was in geology but his magnum opus, the Crania Americana, was published in 1839 and has been properly described as a lasting monument to his learning, energy and ability. His last paper was on the size of the brain in various races of man and in support of his belief in the plurality of origin of mankind, a doctrine to which he gave unfaltering support.[1]
Dr. Morton was succeeded in the Presidency by George Ord. He had served as Vice-President from 1816 to 1834 and as Curator during 1816 and 1817. He belonged to the old-fashioned type of naturalist which has now almost entirely disappeared. His favorite subjects of study were birds and mammals although he did not confine his attention entirely to them. He acted as the literary executor of his friend Alexander Wilson. His contribution to Guthrie's Geography is regarded as the first systematic work on the zoölogy of North America by an American. His biographies of Wilson and Say are specimens of elegant English and prove him to have had what his friend Charles Waterton called "a polished mind." Although he had declared as far back as 1841 that he was compelled by the encroaching infirmities of age to abandon his nature studies and devote himself to more sedentary occupations, he served the society faithfully as presiding officer until December, 1858, when,
- ↑ A Memoir of Samuel George Morton, by Charles D. Meigs, M.D. Read November 6, 1851, and published by direction of the Academy, Philadelphia, 1851.
