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The Geographic Society of Chicago JESSE L.SMITH,PRESIDENT POST OFFICE BOX 223 OSCAR D.WHALIN.CON SECY. FOUNDED 1894 CHICAGO
8/16/09. Mr. John Muir, Martinez, California. My dear Mr. Muir: I have at hand your letter of May 30 last addressed
to Dr. George A. Dorsey which was in reply to an invitation he had sent you in behalf of the Chicago Geographic Society to
be the guest of the Society at its annual banquet to be given somotime during the coming autumn. During the month of June
Dr. Dorsey was assigned to certain duties relating to his special researches in anthropology which will necessitate his absence
from Chicago during the next two or three years and he was obliged to resign from the position of President of the Geographic
Society. I was elected to succeed Dr. Dorsey in the position and it is in that capacity that I venture to refer once again
to the mat ter about which Dr. Dorsey wrote you. May I refer briefly to the work of our Society? The Chicago Geographic Society
now has a membership of about five hundred which represents well the educational institutions in and near Chicago as well
as the business and professional elements in general of the city The Society has a substantial record of achievement. It has
issued four monographs of considerable importance treating of the topography and the natural history of the Chicago region,
and a fifth monograph is now in preparation by Dr. Shelford of the University of Chicago. The Society has an endowed medal
of which one issue has been 04561c/3Chicago8/16/09.