CXXVIII 



Donations to the Museum and Library were announced. 



Dr. George B. Loring being called upon said that he 

 had been surprised in several ways to day. He had found 

 evidences of greater antiquity on Nahant than he had sup- 

 posed were to be seen on the continent. He had found a 

 ruin here, whose worn and tottering stones showed more 

 of the ravages of time than the broken arches of the Fo- 

 rum. He had been through Rome and many places in 

 Europe of the older sort, but nowhere had he seen such 

 worn and plainly antiquated piles as appeared on Nahant 

 to day. Further on, he had found the very rocks carved 

 with inscriptions in forgotten tongues. No one here to day 

 could read them, no one could say what meant the ' epinon 

 ek tes petrels' that still endured in the monumental granite 

 of Nahant. ' Statues were here, but beyond the design of 

 the old masters; frescoes, but wholly pre-Raphselite in their 

 execution. He was full of wonder at what he had seen. 

 He further spoke of the place as formerly a field for the 

 simple agriculture of the early time, when the unambi- 

 tious farmers drove their flocks here to graze by day and 

 brought them home at night. He closed by an eloquent 

 allusion to the restoration of peace, under which blessing 

 the Institute could come to such delightful spots as this 

 and continue its Field meetings. 



John Q. Hammond, Esq., of Nahant, would speak in 

 behalf of his townsmen and extend their welcome to the 

 Institute in their visit to day. For himself, he felt little 

 of the enthusiasm in the study of nature that some exhib- 

 ited, but he could appreciate the purposes and the utility 

 of the Society, and was glad to lend what help he might 

 to promote its interests. A good field was surely here 

 for exploration ; students were constantly resorting to it, 

 and its rare and curious wealth seemed only partly yet 

 discovered. 



