46 Boston Society of Natural History 



ceded to it in its eai-ly days, a rank to which it devolves upon us to 

 restore our historic Museum. He says: 



"The experience of the past ten years (1872-82) has demon- 

 strated the futility of any attempt to impress the community with 

 an adequate sense of the public importance of the Museum without 

 the aid of illustrations sufficiently perfect in themselves to show 

 exactly what we intend to do. These must not only exhibit the 

 general interest of the information which is to be made available, 

 but also prove, that a Museum is capable of becoming an instrument 

 of public culture unequalled in the power of awakening intelligent 

 appreciation of the usefulness of its work in the minds of those visit- 

 ing its collections. 



"It is possible to so arrange, and subsequently conduct, a Mu- 

 seum that it will be much more effectual in this way than any Art 

 Gallery, or Library, as Nature herself is greater and more instructive 

 than any imitations of her ever set in frames or between the cov- 

 ers of books." 



In a later report Professor Hyatt said : 



"Last year (1894), special attention was called to the scientific 

 investigations of Professor Crosby in the Department of Geology, 

 and to the need of keeping up and providing for such a class of 

 work, if we desired to do our part in the history of Science in New 

 England. We are essentially a local society and ought to strive to 

 do a large share of the local work of investigation. For the past year 

 this Society has paid one of its salaries to this investigator and per- 

 mitted him to count his purely scientific work in the field and in 

 this building as a return for the money paid him. The amount ex- 

 pended has been very small and the returns, as seen by this report, 

 large. So far as I know, however, this Society is the first institution 



