54 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 



Cabinet, and we have about 1550 specimens as comprising the whole collection at this 



time. 



The Curator of Herpetology made no report beyond stating that the collection was in 

 about the same condition as it had been for some time. The number of specimens cannot 

 be stated, as the reports for several previous years are too meagre in detail. It will be 

 remembered, however, that every species of reptile belonging to Massachusetts, with pos- 

 sibly one exception, was reported in a previous year as in this department, in good con- 

 dition. 



The Librarian reported the whole number of books in the Library as 3500, including 

 about 300 deposited, these being the property of "A Republican Institution." 



The Treasurer reported a balance due him on general account of $746.19. This 

 occurred from causes not likely to happen again, arising from the removal, such as adding 

 iron shutters to the building. As there was a balance at the same time to the credit of 

 the Courtis fund account of $983.88, the Society could not be regarded as in debt. The 

 Treasurer was afterwards authorised to pay himself out of the income of that fund. 

 Mr. J. Elliot Cabot was chosen Corresponding Secretary at this meeting, and Dr. N. B. 

 Shurtleff, Treasurer. The other officers were re-elected for the ensuing year. 



Notwithstanding the favorable character of the Reports of the Curators at the annual 

 meeting, upon the condition of the collections under their charge, there must have been 

 indications of evil ; as at the meeting of the Council held after that of the Society, a 

 Committee of three was appointed to check the ravages of insects, with power to notify 

 the various Curators of their presence in the specimens under their charge, and if need 

 be to adopt measures themselves to free the cases from them. This implies not only the 

 opinion that harm was likely to result from insects, but some question whether the Cu- 

 rators could be relied upon to free the collections from them. 



The annual address was not delivered until June 5. It was by the Rev. Zadock Thomp- 

 son, of Burlington, Vermont, upon the natural history of that state, and was a very in- 

 teresting and instructive discourse. 



There were some facts mentioned by Mr. Teschemacher at the annual meeting which, 

 considering the great excitement following the recent discovery of gold in California and 

 the consequent results, were certainly surprising. These were, that in a work printed in 

 London in 1818, Phillips' Lectures on Mineralogy, it is distinctly stated that gold is found 

 in large lumps deposited a few inches below the surface of the soil throughout an exten- 

 sive district bordering on the sea ; that Mr. Ellis, thirty years ago (about 1820) obtained 

 from this region a mass of native gold mixed with quartz ; and that in 1839 Mr. Alfred 

 Robinson sent to Boston from California $10,000 worth of gold in large lumps. It seems 

 strange in view of such evidence of the existence of gold in large quantities in the soil of 

 California, that no action was taken to obtain it, and that the finding of it by Mr. Sutter 

 in 1847 should have been regarded as a new discovery. Phillips probably had learned 

 from Spanish priests what he stated. 



In November Mr. Wm. Read, who had served the Society for over two years as Curator 

 of Conchology, resigned, and in December Mr. William Stimpson was elected to this 

 office. 



