FIFTY YEARS AGO AND TO-DAY. 117 



and botany. This material consisted almost entirely of 

 specific descriptions and the modest establishment of a few 

 new genera. Outside of these publications, with the ex- 

 ception of works by Audubon, Nuttall, Wilson and a few 

 others, there was absolutely nothing to which the student 

 could refer to aid him in his studies. Since that time 

 what wonderful progress ! States with their organized 

 scientific surveys, fish commissions, state boards of health, 

 mindful of the germ theory of disease, and above and be- 

 yond all, the stupendous achievements of the United 

 States Government Surveys with their great libraries of 

 publications freely distributed throughout the land ! 



When our venerable president, Dr. Wheatland, first 

 taught the young and ardent naturalist Stimpson the 

 mysteries of dredging from a dory, how little could he 

 have anticipated that within so short a time a United States' 

 steam vessel, fitted with dredges and all the paraphernalia 

 of deep-sea collecting, and attended by a corps of trained 

 naturalists, should visit the county for several successive 

 seasons for the sole purpose of dredging, and that this 

 government and European governments should sustain 

 expeditions for the purpose of dredging in the deepest 

 abysses of the ocean ! 



At that time there was not a single text-book of zool- 

 ogy in our schools ; now, nearly every high and classical 

 school in the land has its classes in zoology and botany. 

 Then not a college in the land with its special professor 

 of natural science ; now, every college with its special 

 instructor in those branches and with rapidly growing 

 museums. At that time not a single popular periodical 

 devoted to these sciences ; now, a number of illustrated 

 weeklies and monthlies with large circulation. And here 

 it is a matter of pride to state that the first and among the 

 most important of these magazines, the American Natural- 



ESSEX INST. BULLETIN, VOL. XVI. 8* 



