1890 .] 
3 
[An nual Meeting. 
The Park Commissioners assigned us an appropriate site for the 
Marine Aquarium which was shown on their map of the proposed 
Marine Park at South Boston, dated December, 1889, and pub- 
lished in the Report for that year. This site was, however, lo- 
cated upon Castle Island and unfortunately upon ground controlled 
by the United States government. When it was ceded by the gov- 
ernment to the city, the military authorities considered that the 
preservation of the efficiency of Fort Independence required the 
imposition of certain restrictions with regard to the erection of 
buildings, etc., which rendered our occupation of this island im- 
practicable. 
This is, however, only a temporary drawback. The Park Com- 
missioners have shown a sincere interest in the plans we have laid 
before them and they have already taken steps to provide us with 
a suitable location in another part of the same Park. 
The. Sub-committee on Grounds has now accomplished all that 
it is practicable to do, having even gone to the extent of settling 
upon the dimensions and general plan of a Marine Aquarial build- 
ing, and its furniture, including estimates of the cost of erection of 
the building, aquaria and so on, but their results cannot be taken 
by the Finance Committee and used in the public work of solicit- 
ing subscriptions until a location has been decided upon. 
The experiment, alluded to in the last annual report, of employ- 
ing a young man of scientific attainments to act as guide to the 
Museum was continued this year, but only for a short time. The 
gentlemen emplo3md in this capacity received an appointment to a 
more remunerative position and left us during the summer of 1889. 
This guide’s report for the two months spent in the Museum, al- 
though it only covers a few hours of each public day, shows, that 
persons often come in pursuit of information with regard to special 
subjects, or as students who have read more or less and wish to see 
the objects they have been reading about. It is interesting to no- 
tice that children seem to have regarded the guide’s invitation to 
come again as quite desirable, and in some instances visited the 
collections several times. A considerable number of school chil- 
dren were sent to look over the collections during the public days, 
either in classes accompanied by a teacher or alone, and the guide 
observed that some schools made use of the collections in this way 
quite frequently. 
The Curator has also this year begun to take some account of the 
