Page:A Short History of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (1909).djvu/27

Rh declining a renomination, he was succeeded by Isaac Lea. Mr. Ord died January 23, 1866.

The anniversary of the founding of the Academy was celebrated in 1854. On the evening of March 20th, William Parker Foulke delivered an appropriate address in the Hall of the University of Pennsylvania, and the following evening more than one hundred members and correspondents, with a few distinguished guests, dined in the hall of the Musical Fund Society, the occasion being long remembered as an unusually pleasant one.

In 1855, the building was again enlarged by the erection of an additional story of twenty-four feet in height at a cost of $12,263, the entire amount being secured in subscriptions by a committee of which Mr. William S. Vaux was the energetic and efficient chairman.

The specimens in the apartment fronting on Broad Street, at first designed as a lecture room, were now removed upstairs and the growing library was extended into the room thus vacated which was used subsequently as the place of meeting. The western room in which the meetings had been held was later divided by a galleried partition, thus affording additional space for shelving.

In 1858, the recently formed Biological Society became the Biological Department of the Academy, Dr. Leidy being the first Director. Valuable contributions were made for the next three years to the separately paged Proceedings by S. Weir Mitchell, Henry Hartshorne, J. Cheston Morris, William A. Hammond, Isaac I. Hayes, J. J. Woodward and the Director. More pressing matters engaged the attention of many of the members on the breaking out of the war, so that the meetings were suspended and not resumed until 1868, when renewed life was acquired by union with the recently organized Microscopical Society of Philadelphia, the combination being known as the Biological and Microscopical Section of the Academy.

As a presiding officer Dr. Lea was dignified and genial, greatly enjoying the exchange of opinions with those brought together each succeeding Tuesday evening. He imparted to the meetings more than ever the character of conversazioni, frequently dropping the gavel long after the appointed time. He died December 8, 1886. In 1860, the children of the late Augustus E. Jessup, in