Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/40

 of Commerce in New York, and the Board of Trade in Philadelphia. The latter promptly appointed a committee with the same objects as those previously appointed by the scientific societies. Still later I spoke to a large audience in the lecture-room of the Lowell Institute, Boston, assembled under the auspices of the committee of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, on which occasion, after eloquent addresses by the chairman, the late Hon. Edward Everett, and Professors Agassiz and W. B. Rogers, a committee of citizens was appointed to coöperate with the committees already named.

The system of public lecturing which had been improved with such satisfactory advantage in the beginning, was continued, and, in addition to the increased public interest which the lectures created, they proved a source of more substantial benefit. Two of them were delivered under the auspices of the American Geographical Society. The value of these last was derived from the circumstance that public support was given to the project by Dr. Francis Lieber, the late Rev. Dr. Bethune, Rev. J. P. Thompson, the late Professor (afterward Major-General) O. M. Mitchel, and Mr. (now Brigadier-General) Egbert L. Viele, who spoke on the occasion. The principal address was made by Dr. Lieber, and it was characteristic of that able and learned writer.

The interest manifested among geographers abroad was scarcely less than that shown by scientific men at home. The eminent President of the Geographical Society of London, Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, in announcing the proposed renewal of Arctic discovery to that distinguished body, expressed the earnest desire of the society for the success of the undertaking;