11 
The history of similar efforts in other populations which have 
had larger success begets and sustains a hope that our exertion 
may be fully rewarded. We congratulate New York on the 
commencement and rapid progress of a vast edifice for the pur¬ 
poses of natural science. We are told that, immediately after 
the passage of the act of 1871, which gave land in Central Park, 
and $500,000 for natural history purposes, the Board of Com¬ 
missioners of Parks consulted with the Museum of Natural His¬ 
tory, and decided that the proposed new building should be 
erected on Manhattan Square, a plot of ground bounded by 
Eighth and Ninth Avenues, and Seventy-seventh and Eighty- 
first Streets. The work was commenced in the autumn of last 
year, and has since then progressed so rapidly that the whole of 
the massive foundation has been laid and part of the basement 
built. The museum, as designed by Mr. Calvert Yaux, the 
architect, is to be in the Venetian Gothic style, and when com¬ 
pleted will provide three times the space of the British Museum. 
Its walls will inclose four courts, each 200 feet square. In these 
will be planted flowers and shrubs of different countries. The 
entire building will be 700 by 800 feet, and it is estimated that 
the saloons and halls will be of such capacity that 10,000 per¬ 
sons can view the specimens at the same time. The cost of 
the entire building will not fall far short of twelve millions of 
dollars. That part of the building now in the course of erec¬ 
tion is situated on Seventy-seventh Street, and forms only one- 
seventeenth part of the entire structure. This section will be 
so arranged as to be complete in itself for the present, and when 
the entire work is finished will be a suitable part of a harmo¬ 
nious whole. It will cost $500,000, the sum allowed by the 
Legislature; the other part of the $12,000,000 will have to be 
raised by private subscription, or .by further City or State ap¬ 
propriations. This section is to be completed for occupation by 
the spring of 1875. The society for whose use this building is 
being erected was organized in 1869—three years after the 
Board of Trustees of the Building-fund of the Academy of Natu¬ 
ral Sciences of Philadelphia was created, and fifty-seven years 
after our Society was founded. 
