Dr. 1879-80. F. W. PUTNAM, PERMANENT SECRETARY, I have examined the above account, and certify that IN ACCOUNT WITH THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. By Balance from last Account . General Expenses at Saratoga 500 copies Constitution and List of Members, Expenses Saratoga Vol., 1,250 copies :- SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTIONS OF BOSTON AND VICINITY.* BOSTON. IN Boston, the different societies are first mentioned; next, the educational institutions, excepting such as belong to Harvard University, which will be found under Cambridge, with the other departments of the University; a notice of the Museum of Fine Arts closes the list. AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences was founded May 4, 1780, and is, with the exception of the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, which was founded a few months earlier, the oldest scientific society in America. The act of incorporation states that the "Design and institution of said Academy is to promote and encourage a knowledge of the antiquities of America, and of the natural history of the country, and to determine the uses to which the various natural productions of the country may be applied; to promote and encourage medical discoveries, mathematical disquisitions, philosophical inquiries and experiments; astronomical, meteorological, and geographical observations; and improvements in agriculture, arts, manufactures, and commerce; and in fine, to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people." The former Presidents of the Academy were Governor Bowdoin, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Charles Francis Adams, Nathaniel Bowditch, John Pickering, Dr. Jackson, Dr. Bigelow, and Dr. Gray. The number of Fellows is limited to two hundred. The rooms of the Academy are in the Athenæum Building on Beacon Street, Boston. Here will be found a valuable Scientific Library. The meetings of the Academy for the presentation and the discussion of scientific and literary papers are held once a month during the winter, and a volume of Proceedings is now published every year. By means of a fund left by Count Rumford, the Academy aids investigations on Light and Heat, and confers the Rumford Medal upon those who have made valuable contributions to pure science or applied science in the domain of light and heat. Prepared by the Local Committee of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, for distribution to Members of the Association, at the Boston Meeting. The Academy celebrated its centennial in June last, and in honor of the event has raised, principally from among its own members, a publication fund of considerable proportions. It has already published fourteen volumes of Memoirs in 4to, and fifteen volumes of Proceedings in 8vo. Prof. Joseph Lovering is President of the Academy, and Prof. J. P. Cooke and Prof. John Trowbridge, Secretaries. BOSTON SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY. This Society, founded in April, 1830, has just celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. After having been established successively in Pearl, Tremont, Mason, and Bulfinch Streets, it now occupies one third of a square on Berkeley Street, between Boylston and Newbury Streets, a gift from the State, the land bordering the square having been sold at a premium sufficient to cover the cost. The building itself was erected in 1863 by the gifts of its friends, and especially of Dr. W. J. Walker, of Newport, through whom, also, the larger part of its funded property was derived. In its earlier years the Society was continually in debt, having no funds of its own apart from the members' fees; but in 1840 it came into possession of $10,000 from the estate of Mr. A. S. Courtis, in season to save it from the fate of the Linnæan Society of New England, which preceded it. Since that gift it has been more and more prosperous, and is now one of the most flourishing, as well as best endowed, institutions of the kind in America. Scientific meetings, either of the general society or of some one of its sections, are held weekly, or oftener, during the season. Its library, composed largely of the publications of the four hundred learned societies with which it is in correspondence, contains about 20,000 volumes and pamphlets. It does not attempt to accumulate great stores of material in its museum, but selects only such as may be of the best educational use, and attempts to display these to the best advantage, hoping, by means of guide-books, to render these available to all in the highest degree. These collections are arranged in a serial order from the basement to the upper gallery, and the visitor is carried from the inorganic kingdom up through the extinct animals and plants to the existing, in such a way that he can scarcely fail to see their relations to one another. In the New England collections only is it intended that the fullest exposition will be given. Among valuable special collections in the Museum may be mentioned the Wyman Collection of Comparative Anatomy, the La Fresnaye Collection of Birds, the Pratt Collection of Shells, the Harris Collection of Insects, the Bailey Collection of Microscopical Objects, and the Greene and Lowell Herbaria. In the laboratory of the Society instruction is given in natural history to the students of the Institute of Technology and the Boston University, as well as to special classes of teachers and students. Regular courses of free instruction in the same topics have also been given for several winters to a large body of teachers of the public schools, in which work it has been supported by a strong public sentiment, and generously aided by friends who have supplied the necessary funds. This teaching has been wholly by oral lessons upon objects in the hands of all |