358 



The following donations were announced: — 



FOR THE LIBRARY. 



Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Jan. 



27th to May 25th, 1847. Boston. 8vo. — From the Academy. 

 The African Repository and Colonial Journal. Vol. XXIII. Oct. 



1847. No. 10. 8vo. — From the American Colonization So- 

 ciety. 

 The American Journal of the Medical Sciences. Edited by Isaac 



Hays, M.D. New Series. Vol. XIV. No. 28. October, 1847 



8vo. — From the Editor. 

 The Medical News and Library. Vol. V. October, 1847. No. 58 



8vo. — Fro'M Messrs. Lea <^ Blanchard. 

 North American Herpetology; or, A Description of the Reptiles in 



habiting the United States. By John Edwards Holbrook, M.D 



Philadelphia, 1842. 5 Vols. 4to. — From the Author. 

 Memoir on the Fossil Genus Basilosaurus ; with a notice of Speci 



mens from the Eocene Green-sand of South Carolina. By Robt 



M. Gibbes, M.D. Philadelphia, 1847. Ato.— From the Author. 

 Grundziige der neueren Astronomischen Beobachtungs-Kunst. En 



tworfen von Dr. C. T. Anger. Danzig, 1847. 4to. — From the 



Author. 

 Populares Astronomisches Hand-Worterbuch. Von Dr. Joseph Emil 



Niirnberger. Zwolftes und dreizehntes Heft, L. — M. Kempten, 



1846. 8vo. — From the Author. 



On motion of Dr. Boye, Dr. Boye, Mr. Peale, and Dr. Be- 

 thune, were appointed a Committee to examine into the phe- 

 nomena presented by the singing mouse, which was recently 

 brought before the Society. 



Dr. Bethune made some remarks on ethnology, a term he 

 preferred to ethnography. 



It has generally been assumed that civilization was the result of a 

 people's emergence by their own force and gradually from a barbar- 

 ous state. This view is taken by various writers, especially the 

 French, on the contrat social, and has become the popular notion. 

 Dr. Bethune affirmed that all history taught the contrary. We have 

 no established instance of a nation emerging from barbarism by its 

 own force, but always where such a change has occurred in the con- 

 dition of a people, it received the graft of civilization from another ; 

 and there never has been a time when civilization did not exist some- 



