SEPTEMBER MEETING, 1874.

A stated meeting was held on Thursday, the 10th instant, at 11 o'clock, A.M.; Vice-President ADAMS in the chair.

The Recording Secretary read the record of the preceding mecting.

The Librarian read the list of donors to the Library for the past three months.

Mr. ADAMS then spoke as follows:

GENTLEMEN,In the interval since our last meeting we have had occasion to note with deep regret the loss of two eminent members of this Society. The first of these, who left us. so long ago as in the last days of June, has deprived us of an associate intimately known by many of the elder members, as well for his faithful performance of the various duties imposed upon him in the responsible posts he filled during his active career, as for his genial temperament, which mingled so much of the spices of life with the execution of its graver trusts.

Judge Warren doubtless inherited his brilliant qualities from persons noted in their day for their capacity and their patriotism. His grandfather was long prominent as an active leader in this State during the arduous struggle for national independence; and his grandmother, the sister of the eloquent James Otis, partaking of his stirring spirit, was marked, among the many of her sex in that day, for the heroic qualities which earned for later generations the political prosperity they have since enjoyed. With such antecedents, it is no cause of surprise that Judge Warren should have acquitted himself in his day and generation with honor. If any qualification of this remark were to be made, it would be to the effect that he did not aspire enough. Content with the quiet execution of the onerous and responsible labors devolved on him, his tastes turned rather to the enjoyment of a society of cultivated friends in private, than to that restless anxiety for prominence which so frequently attends elaborate demonstrations in public life. Hence it happened that even among us in this Society he claimed our attention much too seldom, if we are to judge by the value of his communications when he made any. As it was, he simply proved his capacity to perform a wider part than he cared to undertake. He loved to shine among the choice companions who fully appreciated the variety of his knowledge, and, still more, the pungency of his wit. Thus he passed on, happy and respected, until the period when he decided to give up all work and seek retirement. He had then reached

the three-score years and ten assigned as the limit of man's carcer. But, though returning to the comparative solitude of his native place, he lost none of the powers which enabled him to make his home the scene of quiet cheerfulness and enjoyment, until the last hour, when, having lost the partner who preceded him but a few days, he experienced the last great blessing that could befall a conscientious mortal, he passed away as in a sleep.

The other associate whom we have lost is the distinguished professor in Harvard College, Dr. Jeffries Wyman, whose reputation in the field of science which he selected for himself is too well known to need to be dwelt upon by me. Other members will doubtless contribute their word, prompted by a more intimate acquaintance with his peculiar accomplishment than I have. It has been my fortune to know him only as an archæologist, in connection with the trust established by the late George Peabody at Harvard College, of which he was made the Curator; but in that I have had occasion to notice the capacity and the skill with which he has labored to collect and arrange all the acquisitions made by the Trustees, thus by degrees forming a foundation which will prove more and more valuable for relative study as time goes on. It is no more than feeble justice to him to say, that the Muscum as it now stands is the result of his discriminating labor.

As offering full testimony to our sense of this great loss, I beg to report from the Council the following resolutions for the consideration of the Society:-'

Resolved, That this Society in the death of the Hon. Charles H. Warren, a descendant of the Pilgrims of the Mayflower, and a genuine lover of their character and history, have lost from their roll a venerated associate, respected for his high legal attainments, his general culture and knowledge of affairs, and beloved for his genial character and his social virtues.

Resolved, That the President be requested to appoint some member of the Society to prepare a Memoir of Judge Warren for the Society's Proceedings.

Resolved, That the Society receive with sorrow the intelligence of the sudden decease of their associate, Dr. Jeffries Wyman, Professor of Anatomy in Harvard College, who died at Bethlehem, N. II., on Friday, the 4th instant.

Resolved, That, although it will be the province of the many scientific associations of which the deceased was an active member, and of the College in which he was a distinguished professor, to speak more fully of his attainments in the path of science, this Society cannot omit to record their high sense of his accomplishments as an archæologist,

of the varied culture of his gifted intellect, and of those crowning moral graces which adorned his character as a man.

Resolved, That the President be requested to appoint a member of this Society to prepare a Memoir of Professor Wyman for the Proceedings.

In support of the resolutions, the Society was addressed by Mr. ELLIS AMES and Professor WASHBURN, who paid warm tributes to their late friend, Judge Warren.

Professor BoWEN then said:

It is not for me, sir, it is hardly for us as members of this Society, to lay a wreath of laurel upon Jeffries Wyman's tomb. He was not a special student of History, except in that large sense in which, as their names import, Civil History and Natural History are two branches from the same trunk; the one narrating the deeds, the other, at least in one of its many chapters, describing the affinities and the physical characteristics, of the human race. From early boyhood Dr. Wyman was an carnest student, an indefatigable prosecutor of natural science; and to the last he was faithful to his first love. As an undergraduate in College, his room was a curiosity shop of anatomical preparations, of wall-newt, tadpole, frog, "and such small deer," all skilfully dissected, set up and arranged by his own cunning fingers, as specimens culled from Nature's great book, and illustrations of physiological processes. And what was the amusement of his boyhood continued to be his occupation through life. His best legacy to science, and the noblest monument to his name, is the Museum of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, which he established at Cambridge, and which is filled almost entirely with specimens which he collected and prepared, or with the fruits of his own researches. He was admirably qualified for such labor. His appreciation of the slightest differences of form was so quick and nice as to seem instinctive; while a peculiar delicacy of touch and adroitness in manipulation enabled him to trace the most subtile and intricate processes of Nature's handiwork, and to carry out with precision complex experiments wherewith to test the latest theories in science. At the first glance, a minute fragment of bone told him its whole history,- both the species to which it belonged and its exact place in the skeleton. A few weeks after the surrender of Richmond, towards the close of the war, I accompanied him on a visit to some of the renowned battle-fields in the neighborhood of that city. At Mechanicsville and Cold Harbor, the fields were still thickly strewn with fragments of bone whitening in the sun; and I observed with

wonder the case and certainty with which, without even stopping to pick it up or examine it, he immediately pronounced the relic, however small, to be that of a soldier, or of one of the animals employed for transport or for the sustenance of the army.

Dr. Wyman's success as a man of science was due in a great degree to those personal qualities which made him so dear to a large circle of friends. He beheld objects in what Lord Bacon calls a "dry light," because his clear intellect was never obscured by the mists of passion, prejudice, or selfishness. To perfect simplicity and integrity of character and great sweetness of disposition, he joined that entire unconsciousness of self which springs from keen interest in the objects of investigation, and from absolute devotion to the cause of truth. That he achieved reputation and builded a name was an acci dent in his career: he was thinking all the while only of the question which he was investigating, or the experiment that was to settle the doubt. He worked first to satisfy his own curiosity and gratify his tastes, and only bethought himself afterwards of publishing the results of his inquiry. The feclings of jealousy and personal dislike, the hot disputes about priority of observation or discovery, which too often fret the progress of science, never affected him; and the manifestation of them even by others seemed to be rebuked while in his presence. He was one of the most amiable and unselfish of men. I can bear distinct and grateful testimony upon this point. We were schoolmates and classmates, and have been for more than forty years on terms of intimate intercourse and friendship, never shadowed by a cloud; and I do not now remember that I ever heard him speak ill, or even in terms of marked censure, of any human being. To him might be applied, and with even better reason than when first uttered, what Sydney Smith said of Mackintosh, that "he could not hate; he did not know how to set about it. The gall-bladder was omitted in his composition."

Dr. Wyman's publications were not numerous. Except one series of his Lowell Lectures, secured for the press, as I believe, rather by the zeal of a newspaper reporter than by his own co-operation and assent, he published only a series of monographs in the various scientific journals of the day. His modesty and truthfulness prevented him from attempting more. He was so constant a learner, he made new acquisitions so rapidly, and appreciated so clearly what the rest of the scientific world were doing, that, before he could complete any extended work, it seemed to him that science had got beyond

his point of departure, and that he must begin again higher up. Among the papers which he has left in manuscript, the notes of observations, experiments, and researches, there is probably much that needs to be duly edited and published. Some of them must have special interest for us, as relating to the sciences of archæology and ethnology, which occupied most of his attention during the later years of his life, and led him to accept the Curatorship of the Peabody Museum of Antiquitics, and membership of this Society. The insidious progress of a malady under which he labored for a long period obliged him of late years to spend the winter at the South. But the invalid in search of health was also the acute observer and the zealous man of science, diligently inspecting every mound and shell-heap by the riverside in Florida, which could tell any thing concerning the Indians as they were before the time of Columbus, or perhaps send a faint ray into that thick darkness which hides prehistoric man. His papers and the collections in the Peabody Museum, carefully classified and labelled with his own hands, can alone tell the story of his successful exploration of the banks of the St. John.

Professor TORREY spoke as follows:
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The merits of our departed associate impressed themselves on all who were brought near him; for his scientific spirit was so perfectly in keeping with his character, that his science seemed almost to be a part of his character, and his character of his science. It needed no expert vision to discover the leading traits of his mind and heart: the very absence of display only helped to reveal them. Whoever knew him, no matter how little read in the secrets of science, had no doubt that he was too modest to dictate to Nature; that his scrupulous discretion would be as marked as his diligent zeal; that he would not be jealous over his knowledge, but, with artless and affable courtesy, would pour it out even to those whose only claim was their desire to learn; and that he would leave his reputation to take care of itself. His friends might sometimes regret that he cared so little for notoriety, were it not that just this indifference was one of the attractions of the man. know him was to pay him the honor he did not seek; with many, to know him was to love him as much as they honored him. He had his knowledge in hand as well as in mind, so that he was a clear and able teacher. He taught by example as well as by statement. One of his pupils, who afterwards left the medical profession for a very different one, warmly acknowledged his large indebtedness, even in his new calling, to the

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