4 
way. Adjoining the Natural History Laboratories, ample ac- 
commodation will be provided for the necessary room required 
thoroughly to fit up the Geological and Geographical Depart- 
ments. The funds necessary for this section of the University 
Museum have been advanced by the Corporation to the Mu- 
seum. Both this section and the large addition to be devoted 
to the Botanical Department will be under cover before the cold 
weather. 
Owing to the uncertainty of my movements during the past 
summer, I was unable to invite to the Newport Laboratory the 
class of students who usually avail themselves of its facilities. 
Messrs. Field, Kigefman, Woodworth, and Parker were, how- 
ever, able to avail themselves of the Museum Tables at the 
United States Fish Commission Station at Wood’s Holl. Pro- 
fessor Faxon occupied a Table at the Newport Laboratory for 
a time, devoting himself mainly to the Embryology of the Ma- 
crura; my own time was also given to the same subject, and to 
the development of Pelagic Fishes. A considerable amount of 
material for study was supplied to the Museum from Newport. 
I may mention Dr. Baur, Dr. Boas, Dr. Joubin, Messrs. Ridg- 
way and Scudder, and Professor Giard, among the persons to 
whom material for study has been sent. A number of exchanges 
have also been made, which are mentioned in the special Reports 
of the Museum Assistants. 
We have continued to send material from our American fossil 
Vertebrates to Professors Scott and Osborne. A number of spe- 
cialists have, as usual, made use of our collections, and carried on 
their work for the time in the Museum building. I have been 
obliged to refuse a number of applications for material to be sent 
away from Cambridge. Applications specially in Entomology, 
Paleontology, and Conchology have become so frequent, that, if 
granted, the whole time of the Assistants in these Departments 
would be given to selecting and replacing the material requested 
for study, leaving them no time to carry on their regular work. 
As our staff is not large enough to meet this demand, we shall 
be obliged in the future to limit the export of our material to 
single specimens, and the larger collections will have to be studied 
at the Museum. } 
The principal accessions of the Museum have been exchanges 
with the Stockholm Museum and the British Museum. From 
