BOSTON SOCIETY OP NATURAL HISTORY. 225 



ent branches are pursued under the guidance of able professors in connection with this 

 Society. What is known as the " Teachers' School of Science " has acquired positive im- 

 portance. Professor Hyatt, the Custodian, has been unceasing in his efforts, and has been 

 gratified at the extraordinary success which has followed his labors. This special work 

 has been going on for the last ten years, but never with such marked results as during 

 the past year. The number of applicants for admission to these lectures has been four 

 times larger than in any previous period. Over six hundred persons recorded their 

 names as students, while the average attendance on each pleasant day was five hundred. 

 There have been distributed among these students more than one hundred thousand speci- 

 mens. Yes. during the present year there has actually been given away not one thou- 

 sand, or ten thousand, or fifty thousand, but though one can hardly credit it one 

 hundred thousand specimens, all of which may be studied by the teachers at their homes, 

 or used for illustration in their schools. 



We talk of the wonders of the telephone ; yet here is a still more felicitous method of 

 communication ; six hundred intelligent teachers, going forth from this place to convey 

 the knowledge gained to thirty thousand young people, full of life and eager to learn. 

 Thus has this Society become more emphatically than ever before an educational power 

 in the community. 



Still it would be unjust to infer, from the facts which have been considered, that the 

 larger portion of the attention of this Society has. been given to teaching even instructors. 

 Accomplished naturalists, through its collections and its library, find ample material to 

 extend their investigations. Many come here to test their theories, or more fully to 

 establish their conclusions. Besides which, many of the members, in the course of the 

 year (on their individual account, and for professional purposes), visit distant parts of the 

 country, or take even a wider circuit. They may be found along the whole coast of New 

 England, searching her rocks and sands, or dredging in the deep-sea, or exploring the 

 Gulf-stream, or among tlje Florida reefs, or skirting the shores of the Great Lakes, or 

 passing down the Valley of the Mississippi, or climbing the Rocky Mountains and the 

 Sierra Nevada, or descending the Western slope, or threading the Pacific Coast, or pen- 

 etrating to Alaska, and China, and Japan. And when they return, they come to tell us of 

 their experiences, bringing additions to our collections, and recounting in addresses and 

 lectures the result of their scientific investigations. Has not one spoken of Iceland, and 

 another of Labrador ? One of Indian relics and Western mounds ? One of Colorado 

 with its extensive parks and prolific mines of silver and gold ? One of the Calavcras and 

 Mariposa groves with their colossal trees, the famous Sequoia gigantea, and the Yosemite 

 Valley with its unequalled waterfalls and stupendous granite domes? One of Alaska, and 

 another of China and Japan ? 



It is certainly not claiming too much when we say that at the regular meetings of this 

 Society one may hear as interesting and instructive accounts as can be found recorded iu 

 all literature. And thus to members, and to all who have the privilege of being present, 

 such opportunities are exceedingly attractive. These addresses and lectures arc' not the 

 less entertaining because they are instructive. The stories of the Arabian Nights are not 

 more wonderful than are often these narratives. Travellers' Stories the}- arc. but none 

 the less true because stranger than fiction. Sindbad the sailor saw no greater treasures 

 than are. those which at times are added to our collections. Some of these are as of yes- 



