MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 7 



of Science, held in Harvard Hall, Cambridge, 14 August, 1849, Prof. 

 Louis Agassiz read a paper "On the fossil remains of an elephant 

 found in Vermont" stating that the specimens which were found 

 "a few weeks ago, in the construction of the Rutland and Bur- 

 lington Railroad, upon the slope of Mount Holly * * * had been 

 presented to the museum of the Lawrence Scientific School by 

 Mr. Samuel Henshaw, of Boston. * * * He considered this a very 

 valuable contribution to the scientific school ; but he was sorry to 

 say that it was in itself the museum, which was just beginning 

 to be formed." Professor Agassiz mentions a tooth and tusk only; 

 in 1852, however, Dr. J. C. Warren, in his "Mastodon giganteus 

 of North America," records as received from the same locality 

 and donor "some vertebrae and ribs," and in the second edition 

 of his work, (Boston, 1855), Dr. Warren gives an excellent figure, 

 (Plate 28B), of the tooth. The whole of this Vermont material 

 was doubtless in Dr. Warren's hands for study, and remained 

 in the Warren Museum, Chestnut Street, Boston, until 1906, 

 when the late Mr. John P. Morgan presented the Warren Collec- 

 tion to the American Museum. The identity of the Vermont 

 material was established by Mr. Walter Granger, and the Ameri- 

 can Museum, with a nice sense of right which recalls the position 

 taken by Sir Joseph Banks in restoring natural history collections 

 to France, sent the tooth to Cambridge, and most generously 

 added the specimens originally given to Dr. Warren, in order that 

 all the specimens of "the first true elephant found in a fossil state 

 in the Northern American States "might be kept together. The 

 tusk mentioned by Professor Agassiz has not been traced, and 

 quite possibly may have disintegrated. Thus, though the col- 

 lections forming the museum of the Lawrence Scientific School 

 came by heritage to the Museum of Comparative Zoology, the 

 first recorded specimen in the collection of the School dates as a 

 Museum of Comparative Zoology accession from July, 1920, 

 more than sixty years after the laying of the corner stone of the 

 present Museum in June, 1859. 



The Museum is indebted to Mrs. Margaret Stearns for the C. A. 

 Stearns collection of shells, a collection of more than 2,000 species, 

 with many specimens exceptional for size and beauty. The series 

 from Lower California is of distinct scientific value as a record 



