Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 64.djvu/125

Rh

Adolphus Wislizenus was a physician, intensely interested in meteorology, electrical phenomena, etc. He was made chairman of the committee on ethnology.

James B. Eads was a civil engineer, broadly trained and interested in the scientific aspects of his profession. His name will long be remembered in connection with the first St. Louis bridge and the jetties at the mouth of the Mississippi River—his creations. He was made chairman of the committee on physics.

William H. Tingley was a physician, and actively served the academy as secretary until his removal from the city, which occurred before the end of the first year.

Charles P. Chouteau was the St. Louis representative of Mr. Astor's great fur house, an extensive traveler in the Northwest, and in close touch with the work being done by Hayden in the then new and still wonderful 'Bad-Lands.' At the meeting of April 21, 1856, he offered to deposit with the academy (and to present his personal interest of about one fourth in them) the collections already made by Hayden, as soon as a place was fitted to receive them. This gift was but one of many, and he soon put the academy in the way of utilizing the great resources at his command in the many trading posts of the upper Missouri and its tributaries.

It is not by chance or without significance that 'M.D.' is affixed to the names of all the founders of the academy except Chouteau, Eads and Holmes, or that before the end of the year 1856, when the original associate membership of 15 had been increased to 104, no less than 35 of the first additions to the roll were also physicians, for it was in the courses preparatory to and immediately concerned with medicine that the chief opportunity for scientific study lay half a century ago.

At the first meeting of the academy Dr. Engelmann called attention clearly to the fact that its firm establishment demanded the provision of an endowment fund; and it was also noted that the valuable collections of fossil remains and other natural objects then in the city ought to be secured for permanent preservation. Little success appears to have rewarded the efforts to raise money; but by making almost every one of the original members the head of a committee charged with some branch of museum activity, the acquisition of specimens was greatly stimulated. The record of Dr. Pope's gifts during the first year might be paralleled, if not equaled, by entries concerning the gifts of other members.

After one or two abortive efforts to affiliate with the new academy a private museum which then existed in St. Louis, Dr. Pope's offer of a home with the medical school was accepted, and the property of the earlier Western Academy of Science, referred to above, was given to swell the rapidly growing collections. The museum was evidently the first love and mainspring of the new academy. Though money was not available for extensive purchases, and the records show that even a