REPORT. 
January 14th, 1868. 
In obedience to the provisions of a resolution adopted by the 
Academy March 27, 1866, a meeting of the contributors to the 
building fund was held January 8th, 1867, and Messrs. E. S. 
Whelen, Frederick Graff, Joseph Leidy, M.D., Wm. P. Wilstach, 
W. S. W. Ruschenberger, M.D., John B. Budd, Wm. S. Vaux, 
John Welsh, George W. Tryon, jr., Thomas Sparks, Robert 
Bridges, M.D., Joseph Jeanes and John Rice were duly elected 
a board of trustees of the building fund of the Academy of 
Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. 
On Friday, January 11th, the board of trustees met “for the 
purpose of organization,” and elected W. S. W. Ruschenberger, 
M.D., chairman, George W. Tryon, jr., secretary, and Wm. S. 
Vaux, treasurer. Messrs. Wilstach, Budd, Sparks and Whelen, 
in conjunction with the treasurer, were constituted the committee 
on finance. The preparation of a code of by-laws for the gov¬ 
ernment of the board was directed ; and Messrs. Ruschenberger, 
Bridges, Tryon, Leidy and Vaux were appointed a committee to 
report to the board “ the character of building which, in their 
opinion, will best suit the present and future wants Of the 
Academy.” 
This committee reported in substance that, in its opinion, the 
present and future wants of the Academy require a fire-proof 
building of two stories; a basement of not less than sixteen feet 
high, and above it a saloon of not less than thirty-two feet eleva¬ 
tion, three hundred feet in length and sixty feet wide in the 
clear, or an aggregate of 86,000 square feet of floor-space, ex¬ 
clusive of the floors of the three galleries with which it is pro¬ 
posed the saloon shall be surrounded. It was suggested that 
