1872.] 173 | Annual Report. 
ment of mines of Victoria has been opened, and a set of their 
publications have been received. Six Societies in Europe, 
and one in South America, have presented their publications 
for the first time. 
BOTANY. 
The collections in this department have been carefully ex- 
amined, a work which would have been unnecessary if the 
cases in which the specimens are stored had been of better 
construction. ‘The absence of the police on exhibition days is 
endangering the specimens of the California Redwood and 
Palmetto, which have suffered considerably from the canes and 
parasols of visitors. A change has also become necessary in 
the Lowell Herbarium, and the Curator feels it is his duty to 
recommend that new cases be erected for its accommodation. 
COMPARATIVE ANATOMY. 
The chief work accomplished during the last year has been 
the mounting of the skeleton of the whale (Salenopiera 
musculus), which came into the possession of the Society in 
October, 1870. us 
The specimen is one of the most perfect in the world, as 
may be shown by enumerating the deficiencies. There are 
but sixteen chevron bones (eighteen have been found in some 
specimens), and some of these are imperfect. The inferior 
epiphysis of one ulna was lost. The petrous and tympanic 
bones of one ear were removed from the head, and prepared 
to show the internal ear and were not returned to the skull. 
Otherwise the skeleton-is perfect, and besides having the last 
vertebra intact, although but one-half inch in diameter, it 
shows the two pelvic bones and the rudimentary femora. 
The Committee deemed it best to suspend the whale from 
the roof at such a height that a good lateral view could be 
obtained from the first gallery, while the superior surface 
could be studied from the second, and the inferior from the 
