Annual Report.] 4 lMay6, 



honor of having been the author of two revolutions, one sci- 

 entific and one popular — one in the mode of studying 

 Zoology, and one in habits of thought of the people at large. 

 Doubtless these remarks will seem sadly deficient to those 

 who would naturally expect a more extended notice of his 

 social and scientific character. This has, however, received 

 attention from the President, Mr. Geo. B. Emerson and Rev. 

 R. C. Waterston, and I should only repeat what these gentle- 

 men have already so well expressed, and will therefore turn 

 to the usual record of the year's work. 



My visit to Europe in pursuit of my own studies afforded 

 an opportunity to fill out the Palaeontological collection. A 

 fair representation of the strata of Western Europe was 

 needed in order that we should be able to compare the con- 

 tained fossils in a general way with their synchronous rep- 

 resentatives in North America. This met with the earnest 

 approval of Mr. John Cummings, who generously furnished 

 the necessary credit, and has given the collection to the 

 Society. 



By a lucky accident I was enabled to secure the collection 

 of Oberfinanzrath Eser of Stuttgart, the printed catalogue of 

 which lies upon the table. 



This, next to the collection of Count Mandelsloh, was con- 

 sidered the best in Wurtemburg, with respect to the fossils 

 of the tertiary and secondary periods, including also the tri- 

 assic formations. It also possessed a fair representation of 

 the fossils of the Carboniferous, and a small collection of 

 Devonian and Silurian types. All of these fossils had been 

 selected with great care, and Herr Eser had expended the 

 leisure hours of nearly forty years of his life in accumulating 

 them, during which time he made frequent and prolonged 

 excursions to the most celebrated localities. He was in cor- 

 respondence with the most eminent German Palaeontologists, 

 and the collections contain many originals and types de- 

 scribed by such men as Hermann von Mayer, Oppel, Escher 



