4 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [1888 



the State of Maryland. This plan was pursued thereafter, so 

 that by the time of the centennial year, 1876, all available 

 space in the building was occupied by cases almost filled with 

 specimens illustrative of the fauna and flora of this State. 



In the spring of this year, the Centennial Commissioners of 

 Maryland appealed to the Academy to aid them in placing a 

 full series of all the principal natural productions of the State 

 on exhibition in the State building at the Centennial grounds 

 in Philadelphia. This aid was freely granted. The Commis- 

 sioners appropriated $600 to pay for services in securing speci- 

 mens of marbles, granites, and other building stones of the 

 State, also for alcohol, and jars to hold the fish and creatures 

 belonging to its waters, and for preparing the requisite birds 

 and animals. The appropriation not being sufficient, it was 

 increased to $900, and this sum enabled the officers and Curator 

 of the Academy to fill out typical series of Maryland natural 

 history specimens, and to classify them in the Maryland State 

 Building at the Centennial Exhibition. These collections 

 were afterwards given to the Maryland Academy of Sciences, 

 and contributed much toward completing the fauna of the 

 State previously arranged in its museum. 



Here, as elsewhere, the spirit of the time gave a new impulse 

 to inquiry concerning natural history subjects, and a large 

 increase of membership was recorded in the Academy. The 

 Curator or his assistant spent the greater part of the mild 

 seasons in the field, searching for other forms of natural objects, 

 and many strange species were thus brought to notice. Conse- 

 quently, before the expiration of the first " ten years' lease " of 

 the lot on which the building stood, a most excellent display of 

 the larger proportion of our Maryland fauna and flora was in 

 the Academy's museum, open to every one. 



Courses of free lectures, illustrated by specimens from the 

 collections, were given in the hall, both by members, and by 

 professors in the Johns Hopkins University. Some of these 

 lectures were addressed to workingmen, others to teachers, but 

 the most numerous of all to the pupils of the public schools. 

 A large amount of hard work, manual as well as intellectual, 

 was done to make these lectures and explanations pleasing and 



