It remained now only to secure the necessary material aid. With this object in view, committees were promptly appointed by the American Philosophical Society, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, the American Geographical Society, the Lyceum of Natural History of New York, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Boston Society of Natural History.
Subscription lists were at once opened by these several committees, and Professor Bache, at all times foremost to promote scientific discovery, headed the list with his powerful name.
The learned Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Professor Joseph Henry, further strengthened the cause by the proffer of scientific instruments, and this was followed by the earnest support of Mr. Henry Grinnell, whose zealous efforts and sacrifices in behalf of Arctic exploration are too well known to gain any thing from my commendation.
At a subsequent period I addressed the Chamber 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.