50 Boston Society of Natural History 



tions should have a character of its own, derived from the investi- 

 gations of the person who made it. They will then possess a teach- 

 ing capacity and an influence derived from the labors of the inves- 

 tigators who made them, that will extend widely throughout the 

 community. The Geological department is an excellent illustration 

 of what may be done. This, in combination with the work of the 

 Teachers' School of Science in the same direction, has created a 

 general interest which fills our lecture rooms whenever this subject 

 is being taught. The number of original publications issued, and the 

 interest felt in them and in the Geological collections are greater 

 to-day than they have ever been, and are steadily increasing. 



"The same effect may be produced in every department by the 

 use of the same methods that have been so successful in the teaching 

 and investigation of the Geology of this neighborhood, and the most 

 important of these steps has been the last, the payment of a salary 

 for the investigation of the Geology of the Boston Basin." 



The Fifty-Seventh Milestone 

 i8S 7 



LET us pray in aid an independent witness of the fibre and temper 

 _/ of our early predecessors who lavished their enthusiasm on 

 our Museum. A writer of a very illuminating article in the Sun- 

 day Herald of April 17, 1887, bears this testimony: 



"The Society is significant in its origin as having numbered 

 among its founders and active members the men rcho laid the foun- 

 dations of the present earnest study of Nature in our community. One 

 may read with a certain glow of enthusiasm of those public-spirited 

 citizens, professors in colleges, physicians in practice, business men 

 with large interests at stake, teachers with successful schools, very 



