Page:A Short History of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (1909).djvu/53

Rh number about 130,000 specimens, 12,000 being mammals, 60,000 birds, 20,000 reptiles and 40,000 fishes. The insects are estimated at nearly 400,000 specimens and the shells at a million and one-half. There are in the cases 50,000 specimens of fossils, 30,000 minerals, 20,000 pieces of archæological material and over 600,000 preparations of dried plants. Nearly all the departments are now in the care of specialists and the collections are growing at a rapid rate, many of the study collections being equal or superior to those of any other institution in America.

No one act of the society contributed so much to its prosperity as the publication of the Journal, commenced in 1817 and continued at irregular intervals for a period of twenty-five years. The series consists of eight octavo volumes, illustrated by lithographic and engraved plates, and contains contributions from nearly all the active naturalists of the period, who had, indeed, scarcely any other avenue of publicity for the details of their original investigations. The second series of the Journal, in quarto, was begun in December, 1847, and is still continued. Thirteen volumes have been completed. It contains papers requiring more elaborate illustration than can be supplied in the octavo form, and the plates throughout the series are of a high artistic excellence. The numbers, as issued, are exchanged with societies which publish Journals or Transactions of equal dignity.

The publication of the Proceedings was commenced in March, 1841, the sixtieth volume being now completed. Like the earlier Journal, it supplied a need which was then more urgent, as the workers were more numerous than formerly, of a vehicle of communication with the scientific world. Continuous memoirs and the proceedings of the meetings, including verbal communications and comments made on them, form the contents. Volumes iii to vii, inclusive, of the American Journal of Conchology, were published by the Conchological Section, under the editorship of Geo. W. Tryon, Jr., who had prepared volumes i and ii as a private enterprise. The Manual of Conchology, also begun by Mr. Tryon, was bequeathed by him to the Conchological Section of the Academy, and was published under the direction of Dr. Henry A. Pilsbry until 1904, when, on the dissolution of the Section, it was continued by Dr. Pilsbry as one of the Academy's publications. Since the