1861.] MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 61 



friend of the institution. But there remain eight faithful and hard 

 workers for whom no provision is made. 



I have cheerfully coincided with the measures taken at our last 

 meeting to secure the permanence of our Museum by funding its 

 present resources, and to establish it permanently on a foundation 

 which in future years will render its operations easy. But I deem it 

 my duty now to inform you of the deplorable condition in which those 

 measures have left me for the present, hoping that your wisdom may 

 find means to relieve me as far as possible from the burden I have 

 assumed, for the present, of carrying on the whole work of the estab- 

 lishment with my own means. I have done this, unwilling to renounce 

 the hope of completing the work we have begun, and fearing that if 

 the thread were once broken, out of which all this scientific activity 

 has been woven, it might never be knit together again. To prevent 

 the suspension of the work was for me a necessity that you will easily 

 appreciate. The operations through which the Museum can be en- 

 larged, require, like all extensive industrial enterprises, a long prepa- 

 ration, and can only be matured by a slow progress. Before the 

 funding of the State grant was contemplated, I had laid out arrange- 

 ments with Naturalists in all parts of the world, with the principal 

 Museums of Europe, and with individuals deeply interested in some 

 specialty of Natural History, to obtain from them collections by ex- 

 changes and otherwise, with a view to the rapid increase of our 

 Museum. These applications have been very liberally answered. I 

 have actually received most valuable collections, and others are on 

 their way to Cambridge, for which no other returns are expected 

 except duplicates from our stores, and these returns must be made, 

 whatever may be the sacrifices forced upon me to render these stores 

 freely accessible. But here lies the difficulty of the case. The most 

 valuable things I hav & to give are among the alcoholic specimens 

 which are not yet assorted, or which, if assorted, are not yet divided 

 off in such a manner as to enable me to dispose of that which it is not 

 necessary to retain as part of our collection. To make the case per- 

 fectly clear, allow me to enter into some details. When an invoice 

 of specimens is received, the first step is to unpack them, ascer- 

 tain their state of preservation, and divide them according to the 

 classes to which they belong, so that each assistant may incorpo- 



