Los Anfi;eles, July 3, 1912. 

 "To the Board of dovernors of the Los Angeles County Museum of 



History, Science and Art : 



You are hereby notified that all of the fossils excavated from La 

 Brea Rancho, which are now in the Museum Building; at Exposition 

 Park, are the property of the Southern California Academy of 

 Sciences, and that this Academy claims to be, and is the sole and 

 exclusive owner of said fossils: 



That said fossils were excavated under the direction of this 

 Academy of Sciences which paid all the expenses thereof from its 

 individual treasury, amounting to over $2000.00, under a concession 

 to it by Mrs. Erskine M. Ross. 



In signing the contract with the Historical Society of Southern 

 California, The Fine Arts League, The Southern Division of the 

 Cooper Ornithological Club and the County of Los Angeles, this 

 Academy of Sciences did, in no respect, relinquish its title to said 

 fossils, and it has at no time consented to any proposition relating 

 to the waiving of its title to said fossils. 



It is not the intention, at this time, to remove said fossils from 

 said Museum, or to take them from the supervision of your Board of 

 Goxernors, but we make this statement, that you may understand our 

 claims in the premises, and we ask that this communication be in- 

 corporated in the record of the meeting at which it shall be presented 

 to you, so that in the future, — perhaps a very distant future — there 

 may be no misunderstanding, should this Academy of Sciences de- 

 mand possession of said fossils for the purpose of depositing the 

 same in its own Building. 



The Board of Directors of the Southern. California Academy of 

 Sciences, at a meeting held on July 3, 1912, ordered this Communi- 

 cation to be presented to you by its Representatives upon your Board, 

 with the request that it be made a matter of record in your pro- 

 ceedings. I have the honor to subscribe myself 

 Yours very sincerely, 



HoLDRiDGE O. Collins, 



Secretary of the Southern California Academy of Sciences." 

 Vide Pages io8-iog of Volume I of the Records of this Academy, and 



Page 88, Volume XI of our Bulletin, July igiz. 



This Communication was duly presented to said Board of Gov- 

 ernors by Mr. William A. Spalding, at that time President of this 

 Academy, and our Representative upon said Board of Governors. 



I am not an Utopian, and therefore I cannot hope to remain long 

 enough to see this Academy the owner of its own Building in which 

 these precious remains may be housed, but I believe a distant future 

 will see such an object achieved. We have had an endowment of a 

 generous amount, and a member of this Academ.y, without wife, child 

 or a known relative in the world, has executed his Will and Testa- 

 ment in such form that, upon his decease, his entire estate, real and 



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