2 PROCEEDINGS : BOSTON SOCIETY NATURAL HISTORY. 
many lessons on the sea-shore and in our laboratory or lecture room. 
This has greatly increased our usefulness to the community, and 
some means should be found to continue it. 
An appeal was also made for aid in the botanical department. 
This is still cared for by Miss Carter but largely as a voluntary 
service, since only somewhat more than is sufficient to meet her 
expenses is now paid her. 
Another part of the same report set forth the claims of the NeAv 
England collection in our Museum, and the great need that exists 
of separating this from the educational and general systematic 
collections. The New England collections are scattered in the 
different departments and should be brought together iii order to 
give a complete exposition of the natural products of our own 
neighborhood. The need of exhibiting in connected succession 
the mineralogy, geology, botany, and zoology of New England 
was fully demonstrated during the past summer when the American 
association for the advancement of science met in our building 
and in that of the Institute of technology and many of its members 
visited our Museum. If we had been able to throw open to them 
a series of collections showing such a connected history of the 
natural products of New England and of the geology of this region, 
it would have been a revelation of the teaching power of collections 
and might have had a far-reaching influence upon other museums in 
this country. 
The Curator has always held that a New England museum 
should be brought together in this way within our building, and 
the whole be placed in order before any General guide could be 
effectively written. This year, however, the need for some guide 
to explain the apparent confusion to scientific visitors became urgent, 
and he wrote a small pamphlet of forty-seven pages, accompanied 
by a diagram of the building. This appeared as a second edition 
of a General guide written and published on the celebration of the 
fiftieth anniversary of this Society, but it is in reality new. 
Teaching in the Museum. 
The operations of this department have ceased for want of funds, 
.as has been noted above. 
