430 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1889. 
metropolis, the Academy has seen fit to prepare plans for the much- 
needed new building, and it is expected that active work on the 
structure will begin with the early part of the present winter. The 
main portion of the contemplated new museum-building will be in 
the form of an irregular square, fronting on 19th street 155 feet 
and on Cherry street 130 feet, thus presenting a surface-area of 
20,150 feet. Four tiers of galleries, each in the main, 32 feet 
in width, will surround an open central hall, to which unbroken 
illumination will be afforded by a tunnelled glass roof, springing at 
a height of some 80 feet above the floor. Office and laboratory 
rooms will be provided on the ground floor beneath the first gallery, 
while a number of external preparation rooms will adjoin the build¬ 
ing on the north side. A two-story building, measuring 54 feet by 
48, and furnishing a lecture-amphitheater designed to accommodate 
650 persons, will unite the new structure with the edifice now occu¬ 
pied by the Academy. With this separation of the two buildings 
there will be little interference with the necessary illumination. 
The cost of the building, which will permit of some 67,000 square 
feet of floor-surface available for museum purposes alone—not count¬ 
ing here the offices and laboratories—is placed at $239,000. The 
needs of the Academy make it imperative that this amount, together 
with a further sum of $50-60,000 for cases, be secured, and it is 
earnestly hoped that the best endeavors will be made to provide the 
desired funds at as early a day as possible. All delay is now directly 
hurtful to the institution, and to the interests to which the Academy 
ministers. 
The collections of the Academy have been efficiently cared for 
during the year, and the Curator-iij-Charge is again obliged to ac¬ 
knowledge his indebtedness to the numerous workers who have vol¬ 
untarily or otherwise rendered their services to the Academy. The 
Conservators of the Botanical, Conchological, Geological and 
Entomological Sections may be specially mentioned in this connec¬ 
tion ; likewise, the Conservator of the Wm. S. Vaux collections. 
The ornithological department has profited largely through the labors 
of Mr. Witmer Stone, who, apart from other work in connection with 
classifying and arranging, has systematically applied himself to the 
redetermination of the species of Falconidae, Vulturidae, Strigidae, 
Corvidae, Paradiseidae, Oriolidae, Dicruridae, Campephagidae and 
Muscicapidae. Three thousand four hundred specimens represent¬ 
ing these families have been identified, numbered and catalogued 
