336 DAVENPORT ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES. 



Academy distinctly defines his duty to keep a record of all donations 

 made to the Museum and report all additions at the annual meeting. 



It will be seen that the additions made to the cabinet during the 

 past year compare very favorably with those of preceding years. 



With the advent of the year we naturally expect to find among the 

 earliest contributors the name of Captain W. P. Hall. It would be a 

 tedious duty to give in detail the different collections he has brought 

 to the Academy the past year. To summarize them we may note that 

 the number of flint implements of every conceivable form, color, and 

 variety of finish is over 250 ; there are over thirty stone axes, large 

 and small, one copper axe and several discoidal and hammer-stones. 



Captain Hall has not only worked himself but influenced others to 

 aid him in his work, to whom, as well as to himself, acknowledgments 

 have been made. In one such collection, presented by John C. Vogel, 

 was the horn of an extinct ox — not a common find, especially this far 

 north. 



Mr. B. R. Putnam presented for the Museum a very choice collec- 

 tion of minerals, which he described in a paper read before the Acad- 

 emy. It comprises magnetite, Franklinite, mellenite, zincite, pyrites, 

 hematite in the massive state (specular), and the soft, red species (amyg- 

 daloid), with copper in the native state, also as shot and in sheet. 

 This is a model collection, with carefully noted locality and descrip- 

 tion, making it a most desirable addition to the cabinet. 



There was left in the Academy a pair of leather gloves one of which 

 had been through the fire, the heat reducing it in size so regularly and 

 gradually as to preserve its true proportions though with less than half 

 the size of its companion. While not a purely scientific relic, yet, as 

 a freak of nature that could scarcely ever be repeated, it is worthy a 

 place on our shelves. 



Through the kind offices of Mr. G. H. Hinrichs the Academy re- 

 ceived from Florida a long post of wood somewhat resembling cedar, 

 which had stood, nearly submerged in mud and water, not only per- 

 forated through and through by the action of a borer but in addition 

 having its entire surface literally covered with barnacles. 



In May the Academy received from Dr. S. C. Bowman of Bennett, 

 Iowa, to whom we are indebted for so many favors, two mounted 

 birds — one a fine, large, well-preserved great blue heron, and one 

 equally well preserved, rarer form, the night heron. 



Another consignment came from the Doctor in October bear- 

 ing witness to his breadth of study as a naturalist. In the department 

 of archaeology we have the spine of a conch from the shell heaps of 

 Florida, with peculiar forms of sinkers and plummets from the same 

 beds. In ornithology are the Massina partridge of Texas and five 

 humming-birds in a glass case. In ichthiology is a single specimen 

 of the trunk-fish of Southern Florida. In mineralogy fine specimens 

 of selenite and common salt. In comparative anatomy a skeleton of 

 the red -tailed hawk; head of an old coyote from Inland, Cedar county; 

 head of a young coyote which died in captivity, as the doctor states, 



