71 



German came over and saw the great numbers of mussels in the Mis- 

 sissippi River, and thought they might make good buttons. He began ex- 

 perimenting and soon demonstrated that they were well adapted to this 

 purpose, and now more than fifty thousand tons of these fresh-water mus- 

 sels are used annually. This is a greater quantity than natural produc- 

 tion can supply. The supply, of course, cannot keep up. Fifty thousand 

 tens a year will soon use up the supply. The Bureau of Fisheries realized 

 the possibility of an early depletion of the supply of shells and arranged 

 with Professors Lefevre and Curtis of the University of Missouri to ex- 

 periment and see if they could not develop a method for the artificial prop- 

 agation of fresh-water mussels ; and they have succeeded, so that the 

 propagation of fresh-water mussels will soon be an easy proposition. Con- 

 gress made an appropriation for a biological station in which these experi- 

 ments may be carried forward. We have acquired sixty-five acres of land 

 at Fairport, and the construction work is now going on at that place. It 

 is the ambition of those who are particularly interested in that station to 

 see there a station which will appeal to every biologist in the Mississippi 

 basin. We want to make it a fresh-water biological station where any bi- 

 ologist of the Mississippi Valley or elsewhere may go and find the facili- 

 ties and material for the study of any fresh-water biological problem in 

 which he is interested ; and the Bureau of Fisheries not only hopes you 

 may avail yourselves of the advantage of the station when completed but 

 most cordially invites you to do so. 



Again on behalf of the Washington contingent I extend greetings to 

 the Indiana Academy of Science. I thank you. 



Professor Dennis : I hope you will permit me to take another min- 

 ute. Reference has been made again and again to the large number of 

 splendid, men who have gone out from this Academy. It would be equally 

 proper to refer to the large number of valuable men who have come into 

 the Academy. Reference was made this morning by Mr. William Watson 

 Woollen to the fact that the Audubon Society was an offspring of this Aca- 

 demy. I am sure the mother of that Society was necessity, and the father 

 of that Society as well as of this was Amos Butler. I ask now that the 

 Academy stand, and drink the health, in cold water, of Amos Butler, the 

 father of the Indiana Academy of Science. (Applause.) 



