Having ascertained the actual extent and limitations of the natural faunal districts, it remains to correlate the facts of distribution with the facts of physiography.
My own convictions are that the work of this Society in Geographic Distribution should be restricted to the generalization of results: that we should deal with philosophic deduction rather than with detailed observations and the tedious steps and laborious methods by which they are made available. Our aim should be to correlate the distribution of animals and plants with the physiographic conditions which govern this distribution, and to formulate the laws which are operative in bringing about the results we see. In other words, we are to study cause and effect in the relations of physiography to biology.
The kind of works meriting discussion in the annual report of the Vice-president of this section are such philosophic treatises as those of Humboldt, Dana, Agassiz, DeCandolle, Engler, Darwin, Huxley, Pelzeln, Sclater, Wallace, Baird, Verrill, Allen, Cope, and Gill. As it is seldom that more than one or two such works appear in any single year, there is likely to be ample opportunity for profitable discussion.
THE TREASURER, in account with the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY.
1888. Dec. 27. To cash received from life members $ 100 00 " " for annual dues year 1888 1025 00 ------- $1125 00
1888. Apr. 16. By Cash--M. F. Peake & Co. (20 chairs) $ 60 00 " Paid Columbian University, rent of hall 20 00 Oct. 31. " Paid Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor, for printing and binding vol. I of Magazine $ 190 56 " Norris Peters, for lithographing storm plates for Magazine 58 00 " Sundry expenses of Magazine 6 35 254 91 Dec. 27. " Paid Cosmos Club, rent of hall 18 00 " " for miscellaneous expenses: " " " Printing 74 50 " " " Stationery 28 35 " " " Postage 29 15 " " " Sundries 13 39 145 39 Balance on hand (Bank of Bell & Co.) 626 70 ------- $1125 00
The undersigned, having been appointed an Auditing Committee to examine the accounts of the Treasurer for 1888, have the honor to make the following report:
We have compared the receipts with the official list of members and find complete agreement. We have compared the disbursements with the vouchers for the same and find them to have been duly authorized and correctly recorded. We have examined the bank account and compared the checks accompanying the same. We have compared the balance in the hands of the Treasurer as shown by the ledger ($626.70) with the balance as shown by the bank book ($644.70) and found them consistent, the difference being explained by the fact that a check for $18 drawn in favor of the Secretary of the Cosmos Club has not yet been presented for payment. We find the condition of the accounts entirely satisfactory.