OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 221 



Four Iiundred and ttvcuty-foui'th meeting. 



February 12, 1856. — Monthly Meeting. 



The President in the chair. 



The Corresponding Secretary announced the receipt of 

 letters from Guizot, Vicat, Richard Owen, and Sir Benjamin 

 Brodie, accepting the Foreign Honorary Membership of the 

 Academy. 



Professor Agassiz addressed the Academy at length on the 

 subject of Classification in Zoology. The divisions of the 

 Animal Kingdom, he said, are natural, not artificial. They 

 are based upon ideas emanating from the Author of nature. 

 So far as the systems of naturalists have been in accordance 

 with these ideas, they are true, but not their own ; so far as 

 they have been at variance with them, they have been their 

 own, but are artificial, and not true. Professor Agassiz pro- 

 ceeded to remark upon Cuvier's system of classification, and the 

 ideas on which it was based, characterizing it as, in the main, 

 in accordance with the plan of creation. He dwelt particu- 

 larly upon the class of Reptiles, and spoke of the divisions 

 which different naturalists had made in it. He defined the 

 ideas which are the basis of the division into families and 

 orders. He showed on embryological grounds that the sepa- 

 ration of Turtles as a class (proposed by Strauss) was un- 

 natural. He had observed distinct characters of superiority 

 and inferiority among them, which he had adopted as the 

 basis of a division into sub-orders,, by which he was enabled 

 to classify the species under a natural arrangement, corre- 

 sponding to the families adopted by Dumeril and Bibron, 

 but which are not true families. Professor Agassiz illus- 

 trated his remarks with colored drawings, intended for pub- 

 lication in the forthcoming volume of his Contributions to 

 American Natural History. 



Dr. A. A. Hayes exhibited an ingot bar of pure Alumi- 

 nium, lately received from Paris, obtained by the method and 

 under the eye of M. Deville, who has so largely contributed 



