320 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Sept. 



a scientific character ; to purchase, when the funds justify the 

 expenditure, such books and pamphlets as may be from time to 

 time needed by the officers of the museum in the arrangement of 

 the collections. The geographical position of the academy and 

 its natural advantages, impose upon its officers certain duties to 

 science. These are, to supply institutions and individuals situated 

 in the interior with typical collections of native products, especially 

 the marine animals and plants, properly named and labelled, to 

 regard these collections as exchanges, and a means of completing 

 and increasing the museum, but to give them freely as donations, 

 whenever it may be for the benefit of science to make the 

 exception. 



Such is the museum we to-day dedicate, such the general plans 

 and views of those intrusted with its management. That such a 

 plan is practicable, and would result in promoting in this vicinity 

 the study and knowledge of the sciences, and their application to 

 the useful arts, we have no question. How far we shall be able 

 to carry it out, and whether we can with our present means 

 accomplish more than a part (of that there is no doubt), the 

 future must determine," 



AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCE- 

 MENT OF SCIENCE. 



Eighteenth Meeting, held at Salem, Mass. 



From among the numerous papers of interest read at the above 

 meeting, we give abstracts of the following : * 



ON TWO NEW GENERA OF EXTINCT CETACEA. 

 By Prof. Cope. 



In this paper a description was given of the' characters of a 

 very large representative of the Dugong of the modern East 

 Indian seas, which was found in a bed, either Miocene, or Eocene, 

 in New Jersey. It was double the size of the existing Dugong, 

 and was interesting as adding to the series of Asiatic and African 

 forms characteristic of American Miocenes. Another type was 



• These extracts are selected and adapted from the columns of the Boston 

 Daily Advertiser. 



