

1874.] 7 [Annual Report. 



save the Society the expense of ultimately erecting a new 

 building. The erection of an addition, which was contem- 

 plated, would necessarily involve not only a great outlay 

 of capital in bricks and mortar, but a corresponding annual 

 increase in our expenses for heating, lighting, and wages to 

 employees, besides the accumulation of larger and costlier 

 collections. These expenses would have at once disabled 

 all attempts to render the Museum really useful and instruc- 

 tive to the public, and have obliged the officers and working 

 members to give their whole time simply to the preservation 

 of the constantly increasing collections. 



The cooperation with the Institute of Technology, besides 

 the usual use of specimens, has extended during this year to 

 the delivery of a course of lectures by Prof. W. H. Niles, in 

 this hall. The duplicate fossils have been worked over by 

 Mr. Crosby, and prepared for use as a study collection, to 

 be placed in the southwest room in the basement, which has 

 been floored, and will be fitted partly with the cases of the 

 Rogers collection, and partly with duplicate cases from our 

 own building. The collections of Prof. Wm. B. Rogers and 

 Henry D. Rogers, now in the Institute of Technology, will 

 be placed in this room until such a time as they can be 

 worked up, and a complete suite selected for deposit in the 

 show-cases. Fortunately Prof. Rogers will be able to give 

 us his assistance in this work, and we hope to be able with 

 his aid to restore the labels which have been lost or dam- 

 aged. Mr. Crosby has prepared numerous microscopical 

 sections and preparations of sponges, and the work in this 

 department is progressing favorably. 



The unfortunate illness of Mr. Sprague has interrupted 

 the progress of the work in the Entomological department, 

 though he was at work for a month at the commencement 

 of the year, and has frequently inspected the collections since, 

 as has also Mr. Emerton, who reports them free of insects. 



Work upon the Mollusca, though interrupted, is now 

 being continued by Dr. Carpenter. He, with his assistant, 



