The Chicago Academy of Sciences. 23 



with thirty-four full-page plates and a number of text 

 figures. The mechanical execution was above criti- 

 cism. The papers represented original research, and 

 were recognized as contributions of the highest value to 

 science. The outlook was bright indeed, but the hopes 

 and ambitions of all were doomed to disappointment, 

 and the Academy was again destined to pass through 

 severe trials. 



On the night of October 9, 1871, the great fire, 

 whose record is now a part of history, swept away a 

 large part of the city of Chicago. The Academy's 

 building was near the southern border of the burned 

 district, and time would have permitted the removal of 

 its most valuable contents, but it seemed more danger- 

 ous to remove them than to allow them to remain, as 

 the building was considered fireproof. Those present 

 at the museum closed every avenue of attack by the 

 fire, removed from the walls whatever would readily 

 burn, piled the library and valuable manuscripts upon 

 the floor, and departed to a place of safety, expecting 

 on their return to find everything safely preserved, 

 but, like all the other fireproof buildings in the city, 

 many of which were constructed in the most perfect 

 manner to which human art had yet attained, it went 

 down in a fiery furnace, the magnitude of which the 

 world had never before seen, and in an intensity of 

 heat which even stone and iron could not resist. The 

 lesson taught by our great disaster is that no building, 

 however admirably constructed, can be considered 

 fireproof, unless it is also isolated. 



In the minute book of the board of trustees there 

 is the following record: 



"On the 9th of October, 1871, in that great con- 

 flagration 'which swept away all the better portion of 

 Chicago, the Academy building, with all its valuable 

 contents, was burned. Hardly a vestige remained. It 

 was the work of years laid low in an hour, and we 

 might truthfully say that in some instances it was the 



