objects as have a scientific value are admissible to your museum. 
This is a salutary provision, without which, natural history col¬ 
lections are apt to degenerate rapidly into a heterogeneous assem¬ 
blage of odds and ends, devoid of scientific value and elucidating 
no leading features or principles. 
Your avowed aim, therefore, is that which should be the guid¬ 
ing theory of all local museums, namely, the formation of col¬ 
lections illustrating the local geology, the local fauna and the 
local flora, both terrestrial and marine. By the word local we 
may understand in its primary meaning the neighborhood, say 
the vicinity of Newport, the entire island of Rhode Island proper, 
and the adjacent shores of the mainland with the surrounding 
waters and their small islets. In a secondary and larger sense 
the term local might hereafter be construed so as to extend to the 
whole State of Rhode Island ; but for the present it is submitted 
that it may be better to confine our own investigations to the more 
restricted area indicated by the primary meaning of the term. 
The projected collections would, therefore, fall under the follow¬ 
ing heads:— 
A collection of the local rocks ; a paleontological collection, i. e. 
a series of local fossils; a collection of the local minerals; a 
collection of the local animals and birds; a collection of the local 
insects, spiders, &c. ; a collection of the local fishes and crusta¬ 
ceans ; a collection of the lower forms of animal life ; a collection 
of seaweeds from our shores ; a collection of shells from our coast, 
also a series of the fluviatile and terrestrial species; a local her¬ 
barium, comprising a series of all the wild plants and flowers of 
the neighborhood, and sectional cuttings of the indigenous forest 
trees, with pressed leaves of their foliage. 
Such an aggregation of collections, when carefully classified 
and named, would in time, be well worthy of a special building 
or museum for its reception. To the man of science it would be 
invaluable for reference ; and to our teachers of youth it would 
be a potent aid in grafting on the minds of our boys and girls that 
love of natural history, which, wherever their lots may be cast in 
mature life, cannot but prove an unfailing source of pleasure and 
improvement. 
The second class of objects to be concentrated in your Newport 
