quests, and the like, the institute is in receipt of annual revenue of at least five million francs ($1,000,000), which it distributes annually in the form of prizes for merit in respect to literary-work, inventions, scientific discoveries or researches, and also for examples of what are termed "impecunious" virtue.
The institute, comprising the above five academies, is primarily composed of members, who by rule or custom are always and exclusively natives of France, and who, on the assumption that their achievements in the various departments of learning have assured to them permanent reputation, are popularly designated as the Immortels. Each one of these receives an annual life salary from the state of twelve hundred francs, and a small additional sum contingent on personal attendance at the regular meetings of the academies and Institute.
Besides the primary or permanent members, the institute is made up of two other classes of members—namely, Associés Étrangers (foreign associates) and Correspondants. The number of the former is limited to thirty-two persons of foreign birth and residence, and comprises such names as Gladstone, Alma Tadema, Sir Frederick Leighton, President of the British Royal Academy, Max Müller, Sir William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), Sir John Millais, and Verdi, the Italian composer. Of the names of members of this class deceased within a comparatively recent period may be mentioned those of Agassiz, Helmholtz, De Candolle, Richard Owen, Curtius, the German historian, and Bunsen and Wohler, the celebrated German chemists. As yet the name of no citizen of the United States has been inscribed on the roll of the foreign associates of the institute, although it is understood that in a recent election to fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of a member, the name of Prof. Simon Newcomb, of Washington, lacked but a few votes of receiving this honor.
Next in order in the organization of the institute is the class of corresponding members, an election to which, irrespective of nationality, is regarded as a very high honor, though not as great as a membership among the thirty-two foreign associates. The number of correspondents reported in the Annuaire of the institute for 1893 was two hundred and fifty-six, about one third of whom were French citizens. The following list exhibits the names and the date of the election of the correspondents, including those recently deceased, who have been elected from the United States:
Prof. James D. Dana, zoölogist, New Haven, Conn., 1873, deceased; David A. Wells, economist, Norwich, Conn., 1874, elected to fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of John Stuart Mill; Prof. Simon Newcomb, astronomer, Washington, D. C, 1874; Prof. William Whitney, linguist. New Haven, 1877, deceased; George Bancroft, historian, 1877, deceased; Asaph Hall, astronomer, Washington, D. C, 1879; Benjamin Apthorpe Gould, astronomer, Cambridge, Mass., 1881; Richard Morris Hunt, artist, 1882, deceased; James Hall, geologist, Albany, N. Y., 1884; Alexander Agassiz, naturalist, Cambridge, Mass., 1887; Prof. Samuel Langley, Superintendent Smithsonian Institution, astronomer, 1888—seven living members, none of whom were present at the centennial celebration. Among some of the present or recent correspondents from countries other than France and the United States may be mentioned the names of Momsen, the distinguished German historian; Struve, the Russian astronomer; Lockyer, Huggins,
