when he came to this country, ten years had not passed before he had here amassed collections not only from America, but from all parts of the world, which it would stagger many a university to support. Yet his aim was, not to found a museum which should be a mere accumulation, but one that "should have a well-combined and clearly expressed educational value." The bequest of his friend, Mr. Francis C. Gray, in 1858, of fifty thousand dollars, was the initiation of the final enterprise; and when the new institution was inaugurated, two years later, it possessed, besides the Gray fund, a building erected by private subscription to the amount of over $71,000, a fund of $100,000 granted by the state through the personal exertions of Agassiz, and the collections obtained by his indomitable zeal.

The bequest of Mr. Gray, quadrupling itself in two years, did not find Agassiz unprepared. Indeed, it was the knowledge of plans, to the utmost details of which he had devoted years of thought, that had moved the gift of his friend. He would have the museum represent in each department the sum of our information in special zoölogy, comparative anatomy, embryology, paleontology, and zoological geography. He would have it illustrate at once the structure and mode of growth of animals, their order of succession in geological times, and their geographical distribution upon the surface of our globe; the relations between the animals of past time and those now living, and between the law of succession in the former, and the laws of growth and distribution in the latter.

could not fail to modify the problems which the institution was intended to illustrate and to solve. Yet the usefulness of the plans laid down for the museum remains unimpaired by the new methods of treating questions of affinity, of origin, of geographical and geological distribution. Should the synoptic, the systematic, the faunal, and the paleontological collections cease to bear the interpretation given to them by the founder, their interest and importance, even for the advocates of the new biology, would not be one whit lessened. If the anatomical, embryological, synthetic, and other series presented by the pupil of Cuvier from his point of view, are differently considered to-day by the followers of Darwin, they may, for this very reason, have gained a general interest they did not formerly possess.

The plans of the founder have been realized, perhaps, far beyond his most sanguine expectations; and it has been reserved for his immediate successor to see the establishment of a prosperous school of natural history, amply provided with laboratories, connected with a university, and recognizing in the administration of its trusts the claims of the college and of the advanced students, as well as those of the original investigator. Nor has it neglected the interests of specialists, but has accumulated extensive collections, conveniently stored, and easily accessible to all who are able to make a proper use of this material.

The publications of the museum (eleven volumes of bulletins, and thirteen of memoirs) give, with the addition of the monographs thus far issued by workers at the museum, a fair idea of the field covered by its various departments, though they do not sufficiently represent the original work done by the teaching staff of the university and its students.

The library has grown from a few hundred volumes to an important collection of biological

"My hope is that there shall arise upon the grounds of Harvard a museum of natural history which shall compete with the British museum and with the Jardin des plantes. Do not say that it cannot be done, for you cannot suppose that what exists in England and France cannot be reached in America. I hope, even, that we shall found a museum which will be based upon a more suitable foundation, and better qualified to advance the highest interests of science, than these institutions of the old world."

By a strange coincidence, the foundation of the museum dates from the publication of Darwin's 'Origin of species.' Of course, so powerful a movement in the scientific thought of the time

of pamphlets and of the Whitney library.

In 1860 the building covered a space eighty by sixty feet, and it contained, in all, sixteen rooms, used as lecture-room, laboratories, store-rooms, and exhibition-rooms. A visitor to the museum in those early days would now find it difficult to recognize the rooms or their contents in the present arrangement. During the early years of the institution, every thing had to be sacrificed to the exigencies of the rapidly accumulating collections. But the difficulties involved in so large an undertaking prevented Professor Agassiz from fairly developing his schemes; and it became evident at the time of his death that only a radical rearrangement of the collections could give distinct expression to his plans.

The ground covered by the building as it stands to-day is five times as great as in 1860. There are no less than eighteen exhibition-rooms, with their corresponding galleries, of which eleven are open to the public. Thirty-two rooms are used for storage and quarters for special students and assistants. There are also a lecture-room twice the size of the former, a curator's room and office, eleven laboratories of biology and geology for college and advanced students, four rooms devoted to the library, and in the basement, in addition to boiler space, rooms intended as an aquarium and vivarium and for receiving freight; making, in all, seventy-one rooms and twelve galleries. These rooms are all comparatively small, mostly 30 by 40 feet, no attempt being made at exhibition-rooms imposing from their size. All are not yet complete, but the space now devoted to the different classes of the animal kingdom, zoologically arranged, contains all that will be given for public exhibition, no matter how extensive the collections may become; for limited collections carefully assorted are far more intelligible to the general visitor than larger and more indiscriminate ones; the visitor sees only one thing at a time, and is not bewildered by room after room or case after case of specimens which seem to him to have no meaning.

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In the synoptic' room, centrally placed, a favorite scheme of Professor Agassiz, the visitor will get an excellent idea of the great types of the animal kingdom, unencumbered by a mass of detail. He may pass thence to one of the systematic' rooms, of which there are five, devoted one each to mammals, birds, fishes, mollusks, and to radiates and protozoa, with their galleries devoted to reptiles, insects, and crustacea. Following these, he will turn to the faunal' rooms, each for North America, South America, Africa, India, Australia, and Europe-Siberia. To study the birds, for instance, he will visit not only the room devoted to the illustration of their zoological affinities, but the several faunal rooms, where he will find the birds characteristic of each province, repetitions being as far as possible avoided. This plan obviates the crowding together into one space of the whole collection of birds, which merely satiates the visitor, and teaches him little. Two other rooms, not yet opened, will be devoted to the marine faunas, where the geographical and bathymetric distribution of the animals of the Atlantic and Pacific will be shown. A similar double plan is contemplated for the fossils, to which four exhibition-rooms will be devoted.

The original plan of the museum contemplated a main building 364 feet long by 64 feet wide, with wings 205 feet long and of the same width, built

additions at two successive periods since. The portion on the right, in broken lines, was given over to the Peabody museum of archeology. At the time of the death of Professor Agassiz, the buildings and collections represented an expenditure of about $200,000, and the invested funds amounted to about $185,000. The invested funds now amount to more than $580,000, while the additions to the building and collections since that time represent an additional expenditure, besides the running expenses of the museum, of more than $500,000,— an amount very largely due to the unstinted generosity and filial devotion of the present director.

Witnessing this enormous growth, Mr. Agassiz looks at the future with no small concern. He would hold fast to what has been gained, but hesitates to commit himself to any further rapid advance in the same direction, believing that the limits of a university organization for such an institution have already been reached. While it is undoubtedly capable of indefinite expansion in the way of endowments for special professorships and assistants, it is doubtful if it be wise to expect or aim at any expansion beyond that which naturally comes from the demands of endowed chairs in a university. Original investigation has always been best promoted in connection with educational institutions; and museums should grow in conformity with their demands, and no faster, unless they are to become mere unwieldy and meaningless accumulations.

If the material growth of the past is to continue, the resources of the institution, large as they are, will soon be entirely inadequate. An attempt has therefore been made to combine the work of assistants and that of investigation, in order that the resources of the museum may keep pace with

the ever-increasing specialization in the different branches of natural history. More than that, the conditions and opportunities for special work have greatly altered in this country within recent years. Other large museums have been founded or more abundantly endowed, while a large part of the original investigation of to-day must be carried on in the field on fresh material which no museum can furnish from its stores. It therefore becomes wiser to abandon the accumulation of vast collections, excepting such as may be cared for at small expense, wherever these are certain to be duplicated elsewhere; and to expend the income from the funds rather in fostering such work as may most efficiently be conducted by the professors holding endowed chairs in the university, and by the assistants in the various departments of the museum.

The boldness and decision with which Mr. Agassiz here advocates a policy utterly at variance with that which has been heretofore pursued, is worthy of the most careful attention of all who have to deal with museums. From his position at the head of an extensive establishment, in which he has complete control, and which he has himself largely endowed, he occupies an unequalled vantage ground. He has cut completely adrift from the traditional notions of what a great museum should be, while adhering rigorously to the exhibitional features impressed upon the museum by his father. In this we believe he has struck the keynote of what is needed for a university museum in this country, and what the requirements of modern science demand. We commend his views to all who have to deal with the expensive problem which natural history museums force upon the attention.

ANSWERS TO CHARGES AFFECTING THE

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.

SECRETARY LAMAR has received from Major J. W. Powell, director of the geological survey, a letter, of which the following are the most important portions:

Various charges affecting discreditably the administration of the geological survey have been current in the newspapers of the country for the past four months, and I deem it my duty to call your attention to the same, and to append brief statements to them severally, that you may see how baseless and absurd they appear in the presence of the truth.

It is charged that the survey has been extended into the eastern portion of the United States in violation of law. The law specifically provides that the survey shall extend over the entire United States, and the law was passed after repeated and

lengthy debate in congress by an overwhelming majority.

It is charged that the geological survey is duplicating the work of the coast survey and of state geological surveys. There is no truth or color of truth in the statement.

It is charged that a corrupt conspiracy existed in the National academy of sciences to break down the old organization for geographical and geological surveys in order to create the new; that the National academy itself had little to do with this, but that the conspiracy was the work of a corrupt committee. In an act of congress approved June 20, 1878, the academy was required to report to congress a plan for making a topographic and geologic survey. Such plan was reported, and the present geological survey exists in pursuance of that plan, under specific statutes passed by congress. The committee of the academy that considered the subject was composed of Profs. O. C. Marsh, James D. Dana, William B. Rogers, J. S. Newberry, W. P. Trowbridge, Simon Newcomb, and Alexander Agassiz. The plan was reported by the committee at a meeting of the academy called for the purpose of hearing the report, and was discussed at length in the academy, and adopted unanimously.

It is charged that the scientific men of the National academy of sciences, in wicked collusion with Major Powell, "proposed to wipe out the lines which now fix the limits of all lands sold from the public domain of the entire country, and introduce a new system." There is no truth and no color of truth in the statements; its falsity is equalled only by its absurdity.

It is charged that Major Powell was elected a member of the National academy of sciences by corruptly distributing patronage to its members. Major Powell was elected to membership in the academy prior to his appointment as director of the U. S. geological survey, and at a time when he had no patronage under his control to be used with the members of the National academy.

It is charged that the publication of the geological survey is not germane to its work, and Packard's 'Report on geometrid moths' is given as an illustration; and it is stated that nearly all the publications of the survey are of the same class. This work of Dr. Packard's was not published by the U. S. geological survey, but by what was known as the Hayden survey years ago. The law now prohibits the publication of general works on natural history by the survey, and confines the publication to works germane to geology and geography.

It is charged that "Major Powell has a fondness for state geologists. Now, if Powell can give a

state geologist $4,000 a year, as he does in several cases, the geologist is so much better off." No state geologist has ever received a cent of salary from the U. S. geological survey. In connection with the above charge, the names of all the geologists and assistant geologists in the geological survey are given, together with their salaries and the statement is made in such a manner as to make it appear that they are all state geologists, when, in fact, not one of them is employed by a state.

It is charged that Captain Clarence E. Dutton, of the ordnance corps, receives his salary as captain in the army, and also a salary as geologist in the geological survey. Captain Dutton receives his salary as captain in the army, but does not receive a salary as geologist; and his detail as an officer in the geological survey is made under authority of a specified act of congress, and his detail has been extended by the present secretary of war.

It is charged that collections of fossils which cost in one instance $50,000, and in another $100,000, instead of being deposited in the national museum, have been diverted to the private museums of Professor Marsh of Yale college, and Professor Cope of Philadelphia. The geological survey has fossils in the hands of Professor Marsh of Yale college. It also has fossils in the hands of Professor Newberry of New York, Professor Fontaine of the University of Virginia, Professor Leidy of Philadelphia, and various other persons throughout the United States. The collections of the geological survey are sent to specialists for their examination, and the statute organizing the geological survey contemplates this by providing that when the specialists have finished their work on the collections, they shall then be deposited in the national museum.

It is charged that $112,000 was paid out for salaries in excess of the amount appropriated for that purpose last year. There is no truth, or color of truth, in the statement.

CRUISE OF THE CORWIN.

THOSE interested in arctic matters will recall the pleasure afforded by a modest octavo report, issued by the Revenue marine bureau in 1881, on the explorations of the Corwin during the season of 1880. The following year the officers of this gallant little cutter seem to have outdone themselves, and, among a variety of creditable explorations, had the honor of being the first civilized men to set

Report of the cruise of the U.S. revenue steamer Thomas Corwin, in the Arctic Ocean, 1881. By Capt. C. L. HOOPER, U.S. R. M., commanding. Washington, Government, 1884 [1885]. 147 p., illustr., 16 pl. 4°.

foot on Wrangell Island, afterwards more completely surveyed by the officers of the U.S.S. Rodgers. This land, first reported by the Chukchi to Russian traders, was first seen by Kellett, who saw the tops of the highest land, and called it Plover Island, located it erroneously, and, having reported much more land which was only mirage, his whole discovery fell into discredit, if not oblivion. The land was first accurately described, named, and located clearly, by Capt. Long, of the whaling fleet, who did not land, - an honor reserved for Hooper and his party, and afterward for the Rodgers party.

The present report gives in detail an account of the voyage, and is profusely illustrated by cuts in the text, of a not very accurate or always useful kind, and a number of heliotypes from photographs made by Nelson. These are poor, considered merely as pictures, for the difficulties under which they were taken were great; but intrinsically they are extremely valuable. They contain portraits of numerous Innuit, Tsau-chu (or Chukchi), and ethnological objects of special interest. The text contains much that is of interest to the general reader, but is less useful to the student than the small report of the previous voyage. Probably nothing was farther from Capt. Hooper's mind than the idea, that, by incorporating material from other sources, he was doing an injury to his report. It is quite true, however, that in many cases it is impossible to determine whether a given statement is the result of personal observation by himself, or an inference from the observations of others; and the value of the work as a contribution to knowledge is seriously impaired by this state of things. There is some hasty generalization, and rarely a distinct error, as in the statement that the Asiatic Innuit have entirely disappeared except at East Cape (p. 100). It is well known that they have not disappeared, and are not likely to, and that the short stay of the Corwin party at any one point often did not enable them to learn to which of the two races their casual visitors belonged. The long delay of publication, also, has made some of the statements obsolete, especially in regard to currents, which Capt. Hooper discusses at some length, and comes to conclusions which would be to some extent modified, if reviewed to-day.

The birds, fishes, etc., were treated by Nelson, Bean, Rosse, and others, in a publication which appeared some time since. In the present volume are some useful meteorological summaries from Nelson's note-books, and a characteristic effusion on glaciers, by John Muir. This gentleman's devotion to glaciers and their work is sufficiently well known to American geologists to need no serious attention here. Foreign readers, however,

may be benefited by the reminder that other observers, including some of Mr. Muir's companions on the trip in question, have been unaccountably blind to the remarkable phenomena upon which some of his far-reaching conclusions seem to rest.

Such records as this volume affords, in spite of minor defects, are most creditable to the bureau and its officers; and it is to be hoped that the series may be indefinitely continued.

NEW BOOKS.

For full titles seePublications received at editor's office.'

'THE perfect way in diet' (Kingsford) is a translation of a thesis presented, in 1880, by the author, for her degree of doctor of medicine, and is a plea for a return to the natural and ancient food of our race, which is better understood when one knows that Miss Kingsford is a vegetarian. — The Russian revolt' (Noble) gives a history of the development of the country, showing the effects of contact with western civilization, and closes with an appeal for a constitutional government for Russia. 'Wanderings of plants and animals' (Hehn and Stally brass) is an attempt to trace the origin of well-known plants and animals by historic and philologic methods. The author holds that Europe owes much more to Asia than the mere botanist and mere zoologist are willing to admit; that the flora of southern Europe has been revolutionized under the hand of man; and that the evergreen vegetation of Italy and Greece is not indigenous, but is mainly due to the sacred groves planted around the temples of oriental gods and goddesses. He has much to say of Indo-Europeans, or Aryans, at the time of their settling Europe, and holds that the builders of the lake villages in Switzerland were Aryans at a comparatively advanced period. In fact, the low condition of the Aryans on entering Europe, and their subsequent obligations to other Aryans in Asia, and, above all, to the Semitic races in Palestine, form, perhaps, the central idea of the book. 'Chemical conversion tables' (Battle and Dancey) are intended to meet a long-felt want on the part of agricultural analytical chemists for some relief from the timeconsuming calculations necessary to convert the result of each separate determination into the customary per cent. They embrace only what is required in the analysis of commercial fertilizers and their derivative constituents.

• Notes on

religion, and of the different dynasties, and ends with an account of the recent progress of the country. The principles of house-drainage (Putnam) contains lectures delivered before the Suffolk district medical society, the Boston society of architects, and the Massachusetts institute of technology, on house-drainage, and the proper construction of wash-basins, closets, soil and drain pipes, with hints as to the size and general arrangements of piping. 'First lessons in amateur photography' (Spaulding) gives the beginner, in a few pages, an account of the general method of taking a negative, and obtaining from it a silver print. The subject-matter is arranged in the form of seven short lectures, which were originally delivered before the senior class of a high school. That portion of the book relating to the camera and lens is treated very briefly, and the description of the process of development of the negative is not stated as fully as might be desired. The general criticism on the book is that there is not quite enough of it. — 'De l'effet artistique en photographie' (Robinson et H. Colard) begins where most books on photography leave off, treating photography wholly from the artistic side, and doing so in a very thorough and satisfactory manWe can commend the book to all who wish to study the principles of art in photography, and to those who wish to obtain really artistic pictures, whether of landscapes, groups, or portraits.

ner.

GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES.

APROPOS of our comments on the facilities for navigation in Hudson Bay (Science, No. 142, p. 350), we learn that the company's annual vessel, with a cargo valued at over a million, was recently driven on the bar at the anchorage near Moose Factory, the port of the region, and became a total wreck.

The whaling fleet in Alaskan waters this summer numbered forty sailing-vessels and eight steamers, with a total tonnage of 14,262 tons. No further disasters had occurred up to the latest advices, and the vessels embayed by ice near Point Barrow had been safely extricated. One hundred and twenty-six whales had been taken.

The fishing fleet of the North Pacific has returned to San Francisco. Fourteen trips were made by twelve vessels, aggregating 2,550 tons. The fish taken in Alaskan waters numbered 922,000, and from the Okhotsk Sea 452,000. The value of the catch is about $150,000. This industry has been successfully prosecuted since 1864.

The boundary between the territory of the Argentine Confederation and Brazil, forming the