1875.] • [Annual Eeport. 



quest has enabled us to do this with considerable rapidity 

 among the Mollusca, but the insufficiency of the funds in 

 every other department of the Museum will postpone in- 

 definitely the completion of all other collections. 



We have a fine building admirably adapted for its purpose, 

 excellent collections, all those things which are most costly 

 and most difficult to obtain. There is nothing, in fact, to 

 prevent us from speedily possessing the most perfect Museum 

 of our own class now in existence, except the want of funds 

 to employ a sufficient number of competent assistants to 

 work up the collections. 



The Teachers' School of Science was resumed in the au- 

 tumn of the past year, and has been successfully continued 

 and liberally supported by donations from Mr. Cummings. A 

 course of about thirty lessons upon Mineralogy has been 

 given by Mr. L. S. Burbank, of Lowell, and the usual plan 

 of giving away the specimens used at the lectures has been 

 followed. Nearly a hundred sets of minerals have been dis- 

 tributed among the teachers of the public schools of Boston. 

 In order to test the practical results of these gifts, Mr. Bur- 

 bank was requested to collect statistics of the extent to 

 which the materials had been used. The returns showed 

 that in as many as fifty instances the collections were being 

 intelligently employed in the instruction of students. The 

 Society can therefore congratulate itself upon being the 

 birthplace of the first really practicable movement for intro- 

 ducing the study of the Natural Sciences into the public 

 schools of Boston. 



The Botanical Collection has received daily attention from 

 Mr. Cummings, and has been much improved by his own 

 work and that of his assistant, Miss Carter. The general 

 collection of plants has been rearranged by Miss Carter, 

 and also the collection of specimens of wood, fruit, etc. ; and 

 the latter have been placed in the new show-cases, immedi- 

 ately over the closed cases containing the general botanical 

 collection. 



