Annual Meeting.] 370 [May 4, 



Two additional subscription courses were given at the earnest 

 request of teachers. The late Miss Lucretia Crocker, whose un- 

 timely death took away from the school one of its strongest sup- 

 porters and most active co-workers, obtained the funds for the first. 

 This was in continuation of the course given last year by Prof. 

 W. O. Crosby, and was particularly addressed to the needs of the 

 grammar schools. Twelve lessons were given by Mrs. Richards, 

 for which one hundred and twenty-seven tickets were distributed 

 to teachers, all but fifteen of whom were engaged in the grammar 

 schools of Boston. Eighty sets of specimens illustrating this 

 course were distributed, amounting to 2240 minerals. The aver- 

 age of attendance was eighty, a very large proportion for a free 

 course, especially considering the stormy weather. Professor 

 Crosby followed this with twelve lessons on Determinative Miner- 

 alogy, giving a course of great practical importance for those en- 

 gaged in trying to teach mineralogy. This course was sustained 

 by fees paid by the teachers themselves. The expense w T as five 

 dollars and fifty cents for each person. The average attendance 

 was very large, nearly all of the class of forty-six being present at 

 every lesson. 



Winter Laboratory. 



The lecture room in the basement having proved too small for the 

 double purpose of accommodating students, and the collections for 

 teaching them, it was thought advisable to alter and refit the quar- 

 ters formerly occupied by the janitor. The partitions dividing the 

 large room in the southwest corner of the basement were removed 

 and the room restored to its former dimensions. It was then 

 sheathed up to a convenient height on the sides, painted, proper 

 ventilators introduced and it was thus transformed into a very com- 

 fortable and commodious class room. The old room is still re- 

 tained as a storage and work room, and this enables us to keep 

 the class room free of incumbrances. The rooms have been occu- 

 pied as usual b}^ a class in Zoology and Paleontology from the Mas- 

 sachusetts Institute of Technology, and a class in Zoology from 

 Boston University, both of these being under the charge of the Cu- 

 rator ; also by a class in Botany and a class in Physiology, both 

 from Boston University and both under the charge of Mr. B. H. 

 Van Vleck. These rooms have also been used once by a special 

 class from one of the public schools, and by special students. 



