The Zoological Society of Philadelphia was incorporated by act of the Legislature of Pennsylvania, approved March 21, 1859. The site selected at that time, and approved by City Councils, was five acres of the extreme south-eastern corner of the then Park, consisting of Sedgeley and Lemon Hill, and containing about two hundred acres. A meeting of certain prominent and influential citizens interested in the subject was held, and the matter carefully discussed. At subsequent meetings a constitution and by-laws were adopted, officers elected and plans proposed for raising the necessary funds. The officers of the society at that time were as follows: President, Dr. William Camac; Vice-Presidents, William R. Lejee and James C. Hand; Recording Secretary, Fairman Rogers; Corresponding Secretary, Dr. John L. LeConte; Treasurer, P. Pemberton Morris; Managers, Frederick Graeff, Thomas Dunlap, Charles E. Smith, John Cassin, William S. Vaux, J. Dickinson Sergeant, Dr. Wilson C. Swann, W. Parke Foulke, Francis R. Cope and Samuel Powel; Trustees of the Permanent Fund, Evans Rogers, Charles Macalester and James Dundas.[A] Soon after this the rebellion broke out, and in the clash of arms, the terrible anxieties of the times, and the fevered pursuit of wealth that followed the inflation of the currency, the subject of zoological gardens entirely disappeared. Many of those whose names appear as officially connected with the association, and whose purses and influence would now be warmly exerted in its favor, have passed away, to the irreparable loss of the society. Those who remain have revived the project with sanguine hopes of its accomplishment. The increased wealth since the inception of the idea in 1859, the enlarged size of the Park, the growth of the city and the prospect of the Centennial, have widened the views of the society, and it is confidently anticipated that a Garden will be established, with a collection and all the necessary appurtenances, that will equal in a few years the superb one of London. The strangers that will flock here in 1876 will one and all visit the Zoological Gardens if in any sort of condition for display at that time. In 1851, the year of the great Exhibition of London, the number of visitors to the Zoological Gardens increased from 360,402 in the year before to 667,243; and in 1862, the time of the second and International Exhibition, it leaped from 381,337 in 1861 to 682,205. The number of visitors to the London Garden has been steadily on the increase since its foundation. In 1863 the largest number up to that time, except the Exhibition years, was 468,700, and by regular progression annually it reached in 1871 the large amount of 595,917 persons.