THE MUSEUM. 



and then went northeast to Sydney, in 

 New South Wales. Sydney is a few 

 miles north of Botany bay, where Cap- 

 tain Cook first landed when he took 

 possession of the island. It is much 

 older than Melbourne. It is a large 

 city with elegant parks and a most 

 beautiful harbor, one which ranks 

 with Rio Janeiro and Naples, which 

 you know are the finest harbors in the 

 world. It is about twelve miles long 

 and is indented with hundreds of beau- 

 tiful coves, one for each day in the 

 year, they say. It is certainly one of 

 the grandest places in the world for 

 picnicking. The temperature the 



year round will allow of it, and there 

 are twenty or thirty steamers used for 

 this purpose every day. 



"New South Wales is red hot for 

 protection, whereas Victoria is a free 

 trade province. The two colonies are 

 side by side, and each has a popula- 

 tion actively engaged in all kinds of 

 trades. They are so close together, 

 and the totality of their business trans- 

 actions is not so immense but that one 

 can easily make a comparison between 

 them, but despite all this it is very 

 difficult to determine which system 

 brings the best results. The men are 

 expert stone workers, and the cities 

 and villages contain very many fine 

 buildings and bridges as monuments 

 of their skill. 



"From Sydney I went northward 

 to Queensland. The vines, olives, 

 figs, bananas and oranges all meet at 

 that latitude. The pears, cherries 

 and apples are left further south where 

 it is colder. I had shipped from 

 America to Brisbane a lot of appar- 

 atus in the way of collecting tools and 

 dredges for gathermg shells, corals 

 and other objects of natural history. 

 I found that these instruments had al- 

 ready arvried, so I took them by steam- 

 er for 1,200 miles along the coast to 

 the most northern point of Australia, 

 where the headquarters for the pearl 

 fisheries are. Here we made up our 

 outfit and sailed into the Torres straits 

 to get the corals and pearls. 



"In the meantime I had sent to 

 this field my assistant, Mr. E. L. 

 Potter, a very capable, trained zoolo- 

 gist, who has been with me here in 

 Rochester for a number of years. We 

 chartered a schooner with a crew of 

 ten men, took our diver and the ap- 

 paratus, and a great lot of provisions, 

 lumber, and some baled hay and straw 

 for packing purposes. By the way, a 

 bale of hay, weighing about 200 

 pounds, costs $7 in that country. 



Well, we started out and worked 

 for two or three months among the 

 coral reefs in the Torres straits, and 

 over on the New Guinea shore. Our 

 work was to go out on the reefs when 

 the tide was out, wade in and pick out 

 the finest specimens, and then send 

 them to the schooner in the small 

 boats. We had a great choice of ma- 

 terial, and we simply picked out the 

 best. This work was delightful. The 

 forms and colors of the corals were so 

 beautiful, resembling lettuce heads, 

 cabbages, forming domes and fluted 

 columns. Oh, yon can't imagine 

 what a great variety of forms and col- 

 ors there were. It looked like a great 

 garden of flowers beneath the waters. 



"My work especially, and the main 

 purpose of my journey was to collect 

 corals for Professor Agassiz, of Har- 

 vard University, and I got the finest 

 collection that has ever come to Amer- 

 ica 

 to our own establishment 



"The great coral reef e.xtends along 

 the coast for 1,200 miles, and is any- 

 where from five to twenty miles off 

 the coast. It is built probably on a 

 ground work of volcanic rock. The 

 crust of the earth here has gradually 

 sunk, and the animals keep building 

 up the reef. This place and the Red 

 sea are the two best coral grounds in 

 the world. 



"I went occasionally over to the 

 mainland in New Guinea, where it 

 was not safe to go when I was there 

 fifteen years before. The natives are 

 still in the stone age. All their im- 

 plements are made of stone, partly 



Of course I sent a large number 



