Annual Meeting.] ♦ 362 [May 4, 



that the laboratory had reached a stage of advancement when it 

 could claim and perhaps receive sufficient support from the patrons 

 of science and learning to be placed upon an independent and per- 

 manent foundation. The time also was considered propitious, since 

 last summer had been one of the very best and most productive in 

 the history of the laboratory. 



The Woman's Education Association called a meeting composed 

 largely of representative teachers of biology and the fate of the 

 laboratory was surrendered to their deliberations. They decided 

 that an effort should be made to establish a marine biological lab- 

 oratory, and at least $15,000 should be raised to carry it on for five 

 years. They appointed a body of Trustees and proceeded to solicit 

 subscriptions and are now engaged in this work. 



Mineralogy. 



This collection is now finished, and it is to be hoped it will not, at 

 least for a period of some years, require any important changes. 

 One hundred and nineteen copies of Professor Crosby's Guide have 

 been sold at twenty-five cents each, the lowest price which the pub- 

 lication committee considered advisable. The book may perhaps 

 in course of time pay its expenses, but even this is doubtful. As 

 time rolls on, the necessary changes, which will have to be made 

 in the collections in order to keep up with the progress of science, 

 will probably entirely swallow up any profits made from sales. 



The Guide and the collections are now used by Professor Crosby 

 in the instruction of his class at the Institute of Technology, and it 

 will eventual^ come into use with many teachers of the Boston 

 public schools and others interested in this subject. 



The principal accessions have been as follows : fine crystals of 

 smoky quartz and chalcopyrite from Pennsylvania, acquired by 

 purchase ; a large specimen of rock salt from Turk's Island, and 

 others from Cheshire, England ; opalized wood from Montana, 

 by exchange with the National Museum ; numerous minerals from 

 western Massachusetts, for the New England collection, chiefly ob- 

 tained by exchange with Prof. B. K. Emerson of Amherst. 



Geology. 



Professor Crosby has been engaged chiefly in writing the manu- 

 script for the Guide to the collections of Dynamical Geology, in 



