14 



ANNUAL EEPORT OF THE 



graphical Departments having before that time found their abode 

 in the Museum Laboratories. Quite early in the history of the 

 Museum the establishment of the Peabody Museum led to the 

 transfer to that section of the University Museum of all the col- 

 lections brought together by Professor Agassiz and others which 

 related to that Department. What now remains to be built is 

 a comparatively small section of the Museum of Comparative 

 Zoology, and the completion of the wing devoted to the Peabody 

 Museum. This, when erected, would complete a University Mu- 

 seum, in which are duly recognized the claims of the undergradu- 

 ates, of the advanced student, and of the investigator. The staff 

 of instructors through its connection with Harvard must always 

 retain the highest character, and the amount of original work 

 which can be carried on there by investigators will depend entirely 

 upon the interest shown by the public in keeping up the resources 

 for investigation and publication available to the officers of the 

 University Museum. 



The want of the southwest corner piece of the Museum is 

 severely felt in the crowding of the Laboratories available for 

 Zoology and Geology, botli for undergraduates and advanced 

 students. Nothing can be done to complete the system of Exhi- 

 bition Rooms planned for Geology and Geography until that 

 section is built. This will require about one hundred thousand 

 dollars for its erection and equipment. No greater advantage can 

 accrue to the Natural History Departments of Harvard Univer- 

 sity than the completion of the building forming the quadrangle 

 of the University Museum. 



The income of at least two millions of dollars is necessary to 

 carry out the plans I have sketched and to maintain a Marine 

 Laboratory. 



It is now fifty years since the founder of the Museum landed in 

 this country. Since his death the Museum has more than doubled 

 in size, but its endowment has remained stationary, and its in- 

 come has decreased with the fall in the rate of interest since 1874. 

 May we not hope in this fiftieth anniversary to obtain the funds 

 necessary to complete the building, and to carry on the whole 

 Museum on a scale proportional to the demands of a great 

 University. 



ALEXANDER AGASSIZ. 



Cambridge, October 1, 1896. 



