44 
ANNOUNCEMENTS. 
where those of the first generations obtained their scanty livelihood from 
the land, or from the briny deep. 
The various stopping places in this journey, where perhaps a tarry of a 
generation or two may have been made, and the first home in America 
are so many “meccas” where the returning traveller would be desirous of 
pausing to clothe in living forms these old departed worthies, the places 
they trod and the fields they cultivated; and the buildings in which they 
lived, if any should be spared from the wreck of time, are to such, hal¬ 
lowed places. These feelings are the natural promptings of our nature 
and those who are not thus endowed are exceptions to this common 
ruling sentiment. 
To aid in thus perpetuating the memories of our ancestors and tracing 
the development of the growth of our common country from these few 
places,—especially those located within the limits of the county of Essex— 
the germs, as it were, from which has evolved by constant accretions the 
country of to-day—is one of the leading objects of the Essex Institute, and 
the various publications that have been printed under its direction, treat¬ 
ing on these and kindred subjects, will be noticed from time to time in 
these pages. How much the Institute has done can be seen by visiting 
its rooms in Plummer Hall, Salem, or in examining its various publications. 
What progress it will make in the future will largely depend upon the 
encouragement and support from the citizens of the county, from those 
who have spent their youth and early manhood here, receiving their edu¬ 
cation and imbibing those principles which have enabled them to be suc¬ 
cessful in their respective callings in the places of their adoption, and 
from that class of large-hearted persons whose mission on this earth 
appears to be the encouragement of all movements, that tend to the ad¬ 
vancement of general culture and the happiness of mankind. 
A monograph of the Medusae by Ernst Haechel, Professor at the Uni¬ 
versity of Jena, published by Gustav Fischer, Jena, has just come to notice, 
of which Professor Lankester says: “ This is one of the most beautiful 
books of which the Science of Zoology, which is rich in beautiful books, 
can boast. It need hardly be said that this splendid work is one which 
every Zoologist must study and enjoy.” 
Nature, March 4, 1880, says of it . . . “he has not proposed to himself 
to trace the individual life-history of the Medusae. He takes them as he 
finds them and whilst giving us in the first part alone 20 quarto plates of 
drawings mostly from life, exposes their agreements and variations of 
structure in the most masterly, exhaustive and logically conceived trea¬ 
tise which it has been our lot to encounter in Zoological literature.” 
This class of animals have received comparatively little attention at 
the hands of naturalists generally, Louis Agassiz’s contributions to the 
Natural History of the Acalephse of North America, Alexander Agassiz’s 
Eevision of the Acalephs, and McCready,s papers in the Proceedings of 
the Elliott Society of Natural History, Charleston, S. C., being the only 
works of any importance which have appeared in America. The peculi- 
