Society in former years, will, they trust, be revived, 

 and regularly continued ; but they cannot admit that 

 the advantage to be derived from such meetings, con- 

 fined as they must be to a few individuals, can be 

 compared in importance to the intellectual gratifica- 

 tion and improvement afforded every year, to several 

 hundreds of intelligent visitors to the Museum. 



In addition to the gratification and improvement af- 

 forded to visitors, by the Museum, specimens selected 

 from it have been frequently used for the illustration 

 of scientific lectures ; and it has furnished on several 

 occasions, to the most learned in various departments 

 of science, objects which were new even to them. Of 

 this, a gratifying instance has been afforded during the 

 past year, which it may not be irrelevant to mention. 

 The most learned investigator of Fossil Botany in the 

 world, M. Brongniart of Paris, was furnished some time 

 since from your Museum with specimens which were 

 perfectly new to him, and which have lately been 

 returned with thankful acknowledgments. Still the 

 Museum is not made so useful as it might be. It is 

 a matter of reasonable surprise that it is not more 

 generally resorted to as a school for the young, com- 

 prising as it does, numerous illustrations of several of 

 the most important branches of a liberal education . 

 thus, history is elucidated by many interesting me- 

 morials of the progress of civilization, from the 

 earliest periods to the present time 3 chronology, by 



