NOTES. 671 
THE CHICAGO ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
WE take advantage of the delay in the aaa = this number of 
the NATURALIST, occasioned by our *“ Association Number” to place on 
record the dreds loss which science has met aa in the read of the 
building af the Chicago Academy of Sciences with all its valuable col- 
lections ” library, Bie the great fire on the 8th and 9th of October. 
e had visited the Academy in August and had been fully impressed with 
the aik of its Davai oseadae: and while watching the telegraphic 
reports of the fire had hoped that these would at least be spared the fate 
that once before had befallen the Academy, but the receipt of letters, of” 
h we give abstracts below, showed that our hopes were doomed to 
disappointment 
HICAGO, Oct. 10, 1871, 
« Among the other buildings involved, was the Chicago Academy of Sctences. It 
was considered fire-proof; but, in the fiery furnace, its iron shutters warped like paste- 
num o n 
distant oceans, originally deposited in the Smithsonian Institution, but transferred 
here for especial nyt and pescripsl ion by Dr. ANDAN; the collection of mammals 
and birds made by Dr. Vaille, f labor and ij two skeletons 
of the mastodon; the collections of Kennicott in the Arctic region; of Stimpson on 
and the Gulf Coas 
exertion 
Northw ag and othe er RN of reer history. The Academy had become the re- 
sort for Scientific men desirous of studying not only the waar history of the North- . 
riit phe th ers = shinies Dr. ee MSS. os to the invertebrates col- 
edition. illustr: 
and reat for got ie tak also poe ay But a short | time ago Mr. J. Gwyn 
Jeffreys spent several days in examining our collections in reference to deep sea 
dredg stabi. But all are gone. The patrons through whose munificence the Academy 
was built up have pee in the general calamity. Many of the specimens cannot be 
replaced; but when the Academy shall arise like a Phoenix rags its ashes is a matter 
f doubt. The present is not a time for consultation while the embers are yet alive, 
and while the smoke is yet ascending.” —J. W. FOSTER 
CHICAGO, Oct. 12. 
« Please stop the sale of the books and papers in the cy 
left of any of them. The Academy "e and everything in it was utterly de estroyed 
—not a scrap of paper or a specim aved. My own books, collections, MSS. a 
drawings —twenty years’ work all wer ”— WM. STIMPSON. 
At a meeting of the Essex Institute held Oct. 16th, hen president, Dr. 
Wheatland, read short sketches of the rga Go HISTO L Soctery and 
CHICAGO ACADEMY OF Sciences. From the latter we E au the fol- 
lowing :— In 1856 the formation of a pase for the promotion of the 
Natural Sciences was proposed, and in the following year the Chicago 
Academy of Natural Sciences was organized. A room was taken and a 
seum commenced, but owing to the financial crash that came upon the 
country, very little was done until the year 1859, when it was o ized 
as a corporation under the title of the Chicago Academy of Sciences. In 
1862 the lamented Kennicott returned from his three years’ exploration in 
