31 



verse with members of the Cahforniu Academy of Sciences in 

 San Francisco, by the courtesy of the American Telegraph and 

 Telephone Company. Dr. Britton talked with Miss Alice East- 

 wood, curator of the botanical collections of the California 

 Academy, obtained information relative to specimens of certain 

 cactuses collected on the Galapagos Islands, and asked that they 

 be loaned to him for study, which request was granted; a letter 

 written by Miss Eastwood on December 30 states that the speci- 

 mens will be sent to the New York Botanical Garden in a short 

 time. A record is here made of this event, as doubtless the first 

 instance when botanical specimens were borrowed over a tele- 

 phonic distance of more than three thousand miles. 



