1861.] MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 57 



would neither erect the building that is wanted, nor furnish the ma- 

 terials now needed to preserve and exhibit the specimens to be placed 

 in it, nor make the institution generally what from the first it was 

 designed to be ; purposes for which the resources of Mr. Gray's Fund 

 are equally inadequate, since no part of them can be appropriated 

 either to buildings or to salaries. 



That such a public and important institution ought not to be thus 

 left on the shoulders of one man — and one, too, who possesses only 

 what he earns by scientific labors which few men can perform, and 

 no other man would perform for such a purpose — is plain. That 

 even he cannot long bear its burden is equally plain. Your Commit- 

 tee would gladly suggest a speedy remedy for this state of things, if 

 they could. But they cannot. The obvious one of a fresh appeal to 

 the liberality of the Commonwealth or of individuals, they conceive 

 would be unwise and vain, — if not, on other grounds, unjustifiable, — 

 since the appeal so recently made has been answered with such 

 promptness and munificence. Still they do not despair. They do 

 not believe that an undertaking so great, and so intimately connected 

 with the public instruction and the general advancement of this com- 

 munity, will fail of its end for want of means to reach it. The pros- 

 perity of the country and the acknowledged perception of its position 

 relatively to the other civilized countries of the world forbid such fears. 



The result of the whole matter, therefore, as it now stands, is : — 

 that on the thirteenth day of November the Trustees are to open for 

 the public service, a Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cambridge, 

 — already raised so as to be the ninth or tenth in the world, which 

 has been begun and thus far successfully carried on with the 'purpose, 

 always distinctly announced, of raising it higher and higher, until 

 the Natural History of the United States shall be placed on a basis so 

 independent, that its students shall no longer be sent abroad to be 

 educated ; nor its specimens to be examined, compared, and arranged ; 

 nor the papers of its ablest investigators to be appreciated and judged ; 

 but that we shall have schools of our own, collections of our own, 

 and our own scientific peerage. It is believed that the time for this 

 change has come, and that it can be carried through by Institutions 

 sufficient to render those who devote themselves to the pursuit of 

 science, independent of the great institutions of Europe, and that it 

 can be carried through in no other way. 



