70 HISTORICAL SKETCH

SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE MARYLAND ACADEMY OF

SCIENCES. ¹

The first successful efforts to organize an association in Maryland
for the promotion of science were made in the year 1822, although
the actual beginning of the present academy does not antedate 1855.
Sundry associations had been previously contemplated and some had
actually gone into operation, but they soon disappeared after an
ephemeral existence. The Maryland Academy of Science and
Literature was opened in 1822 under more favorable auspices. A
large number of persons presented themselves who were willing to
advance the objects of such an organization and in a short time the
Academy found itself in possession of an extensive collection of min-
erals and an herbarium, the nucleus of a cabinet around which new
materials might daily accumulate.

A strong appeal was then addressed to members of the learned
professions in Baltimore and throughout the state which was in some
measure responded to. The number of contributing members became
sufficiently large to justify the steps of procuring an apartment where
the meetings of the Academy could be regularly held. After various
removals a location was finally secured in a spacious hall where the
collections increased from year to year until an unfortunate fire in
1835 consumed the entire property of the Academy, including many
valuable scientific books.

Not discouraged by this calamity, members of the Academy in
1836, acting under a charter obtained in the year 1826, determined
to reorganize the society and place it upon a basis of permanent pros-
perity. Large numbers of books and specimens were again collected
and commodious apartments were secured. Five sections were estab-
lished to facilitate investigation along special lines—Section 1, Mathe-
matics, Astronomy and Physics; Section 2, Chemistry; Section 3,
Mineralogy and Geology, including Physical Geography; Section 4,
Zoology; Section 5, Botany. In 1837 a volume of Transactions was

¹ This sketch is mainly compiled from a chapter prepared in 1838 by Pro-
fessor Philip B,. Uhler, President of the Maryland Academy of Sciences, and
from the Introduction to the Transactions of the Maryland Academy of
Science and Literature, published in 1837.