24 Kansas Academy of Sciejice, 



mailed out over seven hundred letters to producers within the state and 

 writing to various museums throughout the United States asking for the 

 loan of duplicate collections, the attempt to build up an economic museum 

 by letter writing was abandoned. 



One of our old-time members, Mr. E. F. Crevecoeur, of Onaga, Kan., 

 last summer offered the Academy, for the expense of transportation, the 

 loan of his museum, comprising 15,000 specimens of birds, reptiles and 

 mammals. I wrote to the Executive Committee regarding the matter, 

 but they did not seem enthusiastic. Mr. Crevecoeur now asks $200 for 

 his museum. It is worth many times more than that, but I judge he 

 wants this for his display cases. 



At present we have no museum worthy of the name and are not 

 likely to have unless some one is kept in the field g-athering the specimens 

 from the various industrial concerns. Our old museum is worthless since 

 moving to our new quarters in Memorial Hall; the specimens are not 

 labeled, are filthy, and jumbled together in every way. A short time ago 

 the building was being cleaned and our so-called museum made such an 

 unsightly showing that I obtained the permission of some of the members 

 of the Academy to get rid of the specimens of minerals, etc., by sending 

 them to the State University to be used in the ore-dressing department. 

 They were useless for purposes of the Academy or for any purpose of 

 display. 



3. Acting on the advice of Dean Sayre and Professor Bailey, I started 

 a course of popular scientific lectures in Topeka. The lectures were 

 mostly given by members of the Academy and were of a popular sort, 

 but of high educational value, and free to the public. The lectures so 

 far given are as follows: 



September 15. Origin of the Earth. W. W. Swingle. 



September 27. Outline of Cosmic Evolution. Prof. Edison Petitt, Wash- 

 burn College. 



October 13. Evolution of Life. Dr. Bennett M. Allen, University of 

 Kansas. 



October 27. Extinct Animals of the Past. Dr. Herman Douthitt, Uni- 

 versity of Kansas. 



November 8. Evolution of Sex in Plants and its Biological Significance. 

 Dr. Charles A. Shull, University of Kansas. 



December 1. Serum Therapy and Theory of Immunity. Prof. N. P. Sher- 

 wood, University of Kansas. 



January 12. Microbes and Disease. Dr. John Sundwall, Kansas Univer- 

 sity. 



January 19. Spiritualism and Mediumship in the Light of Modern Psy- 

 chology. Dr. S. G. Heffelblower, University of Kansas. 



Following this there will be lectures upon liquid air, eugenics, wire- 

 less telegraphy, parasites of man, and sex determination, and Luther 

 Burbank. The lectures have been a success in every way. We have had 

 so large an attendance that we have been forced to use the large G. A. R. 

 Hall. 



4. Another activity of the Academy was the oil and gas survey of 

 the state, made by the secretary and Mr. G. R. Smith, of Lawrence. 

 Owing to the recent oil boom in Butler county, Kansas, the office of the 

 Academy has been flooded with letters seeking information regarding 



I 



