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he taught the science of the day in all its freshness. It was thorough teaching too, addressed to the mind as well as the eye. His experiments were refined and certain,—not too numerous, and without any thing of the showman's display;-one, always the most interesting and conclusive; two, perhaps, if there had been in former years, and might still linger, some controversy about the hypothesis; -and he passed on, without renewing his argument. He had the faculty, so rare and so desirable, of feeling whether he was understood,—to speak more truly, of feeling that he was so.

Dr. Dunglison, who was for many years his associate in the University of Virginia, writes to me: "As a lecturer on science, Dr. Patterson was one of the most successful I have ever heard. Clear and eloquent, without being gaudy or ostentatious,-simple, as every lecturer on science ought to be, with his various experiments always well arranged beforehand, and certain to effect the elucidation he proposed, he led his hearers on from the elementary to the abstruse with progressively increasing interest."

He did not write a great deal, and has wronged his memory by not publishing what he wrote. Here and there, an essay or a report or a lecture or a review,-sometimes, as when we called upon him at our centennary celebration, an avowed and formal discourse;— and for the rest, Dr. Patterson was labouring throughout his life to advance the researches or to register the success of some more ambitious votary of science. One of his pupils,* himself among the most felicitous instructors of our period, tells me that from Dr. Patterson he received his best and most effective lessons in the art of teaching. Whatever was the branch, he says, or the immediate topic, I found him thoroughly read up, his thoughts marshalled and lucid, his opinions formed, and his disposition frank and even anxious to make all his knowledge available to the objects I had in view.

In the different organizations, that make up for Philadelphia her proudest characteristic, Dr. Patterson was always a leading man. Our own Society, the Academy of Natural Science, the Franklin Institute, the Institution for the Blind, the Musical Fund Society, the several corporations of the church he belonged to,-in all of these, his death has left a melancholy vacancy.

In the recesses of social intercourse,-in those quiet, joyous, instructive meetings, the little group of FIVE, which it was my privilege to share with Bethune and Dallas Bache and Dunglison, I can

*Professor Frazer.

not speak of Patterson as we knew him there, the gladsome, appreciative, cordial man, whom all of us loved. But we were not alone in this. I never heard him, says Doctor Bethune, speak one harsh word of a fellow-being: and I may venture to add, I never heard one fellow-being speak a harsh word against him. He was indeed full of charity. He had seen a good deal of the world, and moved freely in its circles of thought and action, and was not perhaps without some experience of its ingratitude;-Who can hope to be?—Yet it would have tasked him to remember an injury, and he was as sensitive to kindness as a child.

I have said nothing of his official life. It was full of large responsibilities, admirably sustained. He went into it, not without some reluctance, for it was alien to many of his habits,-yet with pride, because it invited him to deepen the footprints of his father. He resigned it, after passing unscathed through the purgatory of several political conflicts, and their alternating denunciations of triumph, with the honest regrets of every ingenuous and gallant adver

sary.

In conclusion, let it be permitted me to say, that though I knew Dr. Patterson better than I knew any man else, and better probably than any body else can have known him, I ought not to have ventured upon the office of preparing this sketch. He was too closely my friend: I loved him too much: his death has made too painful a severance of the ties that bound me to the world of men. I have felt in every line I have traced, that I had to guard against the promptings of my heart. No one that knew him at all will think that I have praised him.

"His saltem accumulem donis, et fungar inani

Munere."

Mr. Fraley announced the decease of Mr. Thomas P. Cope, a member of this Society, who died on the 22d of last month, in the 87th year of his age:-And, on motion of Mr. Fraley, Job R. Tyson, Esq., was requested to prepare an obituary notice of Mr. Cope.

The Treasurer read his annual report, which was referred to the Committee of Finance.

The Committee of Publication made their annual report. The Committee appointed at last meeting on the subject of the American Arctic Expedition, presented a draft of a memorial to Congress on that subject, which, on motion, was adopted

by the Society, and ordered to be signed by the proper officers and transmitted to Congress.

Stated Meeting, December 15.

Present, twenty-one members.

Dr. FRANKLIN BACHE, President, in the Chair.

Letters were read:

From the Royal Academy of Sciences at Amsterdam, dated 7th September, 1854,-and from the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin, dated 9th September, 1854,-on transmitting donations for the library:

From the Horticultural Society of London, dated Regent street, November 7, 1854;-from the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin, dated 9th September, 1854;-from the Librarian of the Royal Library at Berlin, dated 14th November, 1854, returning thanks for donations from this Society:

From W. Vrolik, Secretary of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Amsterdam, dated 7th September, 1854, requesting to be furnished with the volumes of the Old Series of the Society's Transactions:

From W. H. de Vriese to Dr. Dunglison, dated Leyden, 13th October, 1854, proposing to send to the Society various. works, of which he is the author.

The following donations were announced:

FOR THE LIBRARY.

Bulletin de la Société de Géographie. IV Série. Tome VII. Paris. 1854. 8vo.-From the Society.

Annales des Mines. V. Série. Tome V. Livraisons 1, 2 de 1854. Paris. 8vo. From the Engineers of l'Ecole des Mines. Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen. Eerste Deel. 4to.

Verslagen en Mededeelingen der Akademie van Wetenschappen.

Eerste Deel. 1, 2, 3 Stuk; Tweede Deel, 1, 2 Stuk. Amster

dam. 1853-4. 8vo.-From the Royal Academy of Sciences, Amsterdam.

Abhandlungen der Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, aus dem Jahre 1853. Berlin. 4to.

Monatsbericht der Königl. Preuss. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. August-December, 1853. January-July, 1854. Berlin, 1854.—From the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin. Quarterly Journal of the Chemical Society. Vol. VII. No. 3. Oct. 1854. London. 8vo.-From the Society.

The Medical News and Library. Vol. XII. No. 144. December, 1854. Philadelphia. 8vo.-From Blanchard & Lea.

The Florist and Horticultural Journal. Vol. III. Nos. 10, 11. Philadelphia, 1854.-From H. C. Hanson, Editor.

The Astronomical Journal. Vol. VI. No. 6. December 5, 1854.
Cambridge. 4to.-From Dr. B. A. Gould, Jr., Editor.
The African Repository. Vol. XXX. No. 12. December, 1854.

Washington. 8vo.-From the American Colonization Society. The Plough, the Loom and the Anvil. Vol. VII. No. 6. December, 1854. New York. 8vo.-From Myron Finch, Editor.

Mr. Fraley announced the decease of William H. Dillingham, a member of this Society, who died on the 11th instant, in the 65th year of his age:

And, on motion of Mr. Fraley, Dr. William Darlington, of West Chester, was requested to prepare an obituary notice of Mr. Dillingham.

The Committee of Finance reported that they had examined the accounts of the Treasurer for the fiscal year ending on the first of the present month, and found them to be correct.

The Committee recommended the following appropriations for the several purposes named;-which appropriations were ordered by the Society:

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gress, condition and general affairs of the Society,-with suggestions relative to the measures which, in his opinion, will conduce to the future improvement and efficiency of its scientific and business operations.

He remarked that since the delivery of his discourse in December last, the Society has pursued its usual quiet and useful career. The number of members on the first of January, 1854, was 362, of whom 261 are resident in the United States, and 101 in foreign countries. Since that time 21 resident and 7 foreign members have been elected, and in the same time the decease of 10 resident and 2 foreign members has been announced. According to a classification made by him of the resident members, as supposed to prefer the cultivation of science and the arts, literature, or natural history,-it appears that we have 158 scientific men and artists, 83 literary men, and 20 naturalists. He mentioned, as a source of regret, that our members of the literary class, comprising, for the most part, gentlemen of the legal and clerical professions, have seldom favoured us with any communications, as if they considered the object of the Society to be exclusively the cultivation of science.

The foreign members reported as deceased during the year, are Gotthelf Fischer von Waldheim, of Moscow, and Sir James Wylie, of St. Petersburg. Both these gentlemen were visited by the President during his tour in Europe, in the summer of 1853, and he bore testimony as to the cordiality with which he was received by them as a representative of the Society;-briefly commenting on the life and character of each.

He then proceeded to notice the resident members who have died within the year, and alluded particularly to Dr. Robert M. Patterson, late President of the Society, and also to the melancholy disaster which befel the steamer Arctic, in September last, by which the Society was deprived of two of its members, Mr. Jacob G. Morris and Prof. Henry Reed. He suggested that the consideration whether any means can be devised to prevent the increasing liability to danger from collisions at sea, might appropriately engage the attention of this Society, expressly established for the promotion of useful knowledge.

After some remarks in relation to the obituary notices of deceased members, he spoke of the improvement of the Society's library, and of the necessity for more extended accommodations for so numerous and valuable a collection of books and documents;-referring also

VOL. VI.--K

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