The Museum as it stands To-day 81 



ing the facts gathered by its members, and securing to them their 

 honest due as original observers. The circulation of the Journal is 

 now nearly sufficient to defray the expense of its publication; and 

 the demand for it, especially from abroad, is rapidly increasing. 



"The Society has also published and distributed, gratuitously, the 

 discourses given at the annual meeting, by Dr. Walter Charming, 

 Rev. H. Winslow,and J. E. Teschemacher.Esq. Arrangements have 

 also been made to publish an Abstract of the doings of the meet- 

 ings in a form to be extensively and promptly circulated, as is now 

 done by most other scientific bodies." 



The first volume of the Proceedings was published in 1 844 and 

 contained papers delivered before the Society from 1841 to 1844. 

 Through 1895, those papers printed in the Proceedings were read 

 at the meetings of the Society. These go through Volume xxvi. 



From 1896 (starting with Volume xxvn), papers in the Proceed- 

 ings are those dealingwith general Natural History. As time went on, 

 the subjects in the Proceedings became broader in scope. At the pre- 

 sent time this publication is composed of more or less extensive papers 

 on all the branches of Natural History. Each volume contains from 

 four hundred to five hundred pages. Illustrations are frequent. Vol- 

 ume xxx ix is now in progress. 



In I860 the first volume of the Memoirs was published, this 

 "being a new series of the Boston Journal of Natural History." 

 The first paper in this was A Revision of the Polypi of the Eastern 

 Coast of the United States by A. E. Verrill. This was read before 

 the Society on November 19, 1862. The early volumes contained 

 papers by Elliott Coues, Samuel H. Scudder, Alpheus Hyatt, H. 

 James Clark, J. A. Allen, Charles Sedgwick Minot, Edward S. 

 Morse, Jeffries Wyman, N. S. Shaler, C. R. Osten Sacken. These are 



