610 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



CIRCULAR OF THE CHICAGO ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



The president and secretary of the Chicago Academy of 

 Sciences have lately issued a circular, addressed to its friends 

 and correspondents throughout the world, detailing the 

 amount of loss incurred by the disastrous fire of October, 

 1871, in which the building of the academy, although con- 

 sidered fire-proof, was entirely destroyed, with all its con- 

 tents, nothing whatever having been saved from the flames. 



According to the circular, the general collection of the 

 academy contained about 2000 mammals, 10,000 birds, 15,000 

 specimens of insects, 5000 fishes, and 8000 species of plants, 

 together with a large series of ethnological implements and 

 other objects. The special collections were of the greatest 

 value: araonsf these the birds of the Audubon Club; the 

 state collection of insects, purchased from the heirs of Mr. B. 

 D. Walsh ; the cabinet of marine shells formerly belonging 

 to Mr. William Cooper, of New York ; the Florida collections, 

 made during two winters by Mr. Blatchford and Dr. Stimp- 

 son ; the cabinet of minerals purchased from the estate of 

 Mr. G. W. Hughes ; the collections made in Alaska by BischofF 

 and the other naturalists of the Vfestern Union Telegraph ex- 

 pedition ; the deep-sea Crustacea and mollusca dredged in the 

 Gulf Stream by Count Pourtales ; a large collection of terti- 

 ary fossils of the United States ; the mineralogical collection 

 of Mr. Atwater ; the herbarium of the late Dr. Scammon ; the 

 Scammon collection of ancient Central American pottery; 

 the collections from the deep-sea dredgings by Dr. Stimpson 

 and Mr. Milner in Lake Michigan. The most serious losses, 

 however, were those of the Smithsonian collections of Crusta- 

 cea, undoubtedly the largest alcoholic collection of this class 

 in the world. This filled over 10,000 jars, and contained the 

 types of the species described by Professor Dana, besides 

 hundreds of new species, many of which were described in 

 manuscripts lost by the same fire. The invertebrates of the 

 United States North Pacific Exploring Expedition^ collected 

 mainly in the Japanese seas by Dr. Stimpson in 1853-56, and 

 the collection of the marine shells of the east coast of the 

 United States, were also lost. 



The collections of the Smithsonian Institution had been 

 placed in Dr. Stimpson's hands for investigation, having been 



