ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 9 



tively, as many details may yet have to be arranged, and experi- 

 ence will be the best teacher as to our wants. 



It is agreeable to observe a change in the manner which cer- 

 tain journals of the city have assumed toward the Academy in 

 their reports of its meetings. Some time since it was too much 

 the custom to sneer at our deliberations, and attempt by some ill- 

 judged witticisms to underrate their importance; but of late care- 

 ful and respectful attention has been given to what passes here, and 

 a more considerate tone has been taken by those representatives 

 of the press who were once wont to assail us with unfair criti- 

 cism. Science, no less than literature, aims at the elevation and 

 refinement of mankind, and her struggles for the progress of the 

 race should be encouraged by all who value the welfare of their 

 fellows. And if my feeble words may reach the monej^ed men 

 of California, I would say to them that a field of benevolence is 

 open to them, on which some of their surplus riches may be 

 spent, which is fraught with incalculable advantages to the rising 

 generation. I mean a thorough and scientific exploration of this 

 most interesting country, and the collection of specimens in all 

 branches of natural history, so that a museum of the Pacific 

 Coast worthy of the name may find its home in San Francisco, 

 and the riches we possess at our very doors may be brought to- 

 gether for preservation and for after use, instead of being now 

 transmitted to Europe and across the continent to enrich the col- 

 lections of older and wiser communities than ourselves. It is 

 true that much has already been done by .private investigation, 

 but after all the bulk of the work remains undone. Naturalists 

 as a class are invariably poor, and need help from their more for- 

 tunate brethren. In the single matter of Indian relics alone, 

 the field is almost infinite, the late expedition to Southern Cali- 

 fornia, under Lieutenant Wheeler, taking from the neighborhood 

 of Santa Barbara over thirteen tons weight of these interesting 

 memorials for exhibition at the Centennial. These will find their 

 way into some of the museums of the Atlantic States, and be re- 

 garded as among the most valuable of their deposits, while Cali- 

 fornia tamely allows herself to be deprived of objects which should 

 surely be under her care alone. In every branch of natural his- 

 tory, too, the same remarks will apply. Our species have in 

 many instances, for the want of literature or a full series of spec- 

 imens, been sent elsewhere to be described, and the original types 



