Page:A Short History of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (1909).djvu/54

36 death of Mr. Tryon seven volumes of the first series and fifteen of the second have been issued, every species of which a figure can be obtained being illustrated by colored lithographic plates.

Since the formation of the Entomological Section by the union of the American Entomological Society with the Academy in 1875, the publication of the Transactions of the Society has been continued. The Entomological News, embracing the proceedings of the Entomological Section was begun in 1890, and the nineteenth volume has been completed.

The several series of the publications form 151 volumes. The output for the year 1908 amounted to 1,936 pages and 133 plates. It is gratifying to know that the quantity of the matter published is in no sense at the expense of its quality. The importance of the Academy is measurably dependent on the discoveries announced in its publications. They are the organs of speech of the society by means of which it holds communication with naturalists in all civilized countries. They encourage the student to labor, for investigation would be purposeless if the results could not be given to the world.

On the acquisition of the Seybert collection of minerals in August, 1814, Dr. Gerard Troost, the President, delivered a course of lectures on mineralogy. Courses on entomology were delivered by Mr. Say and on botany by Drs. Waterhouse and Barnes. The latter were so successful that they were repeated the following year. Soon after the Academy's occupancy of the hall in Gilliams' Court, Mr. Shinn gave discourses on chemistry, and this form of activity was kept up until the removal to the building at Twelfth and George's Streets, twenty-five lectures having been delivered in 1824 by Messrs. Coates, Darrach, Gilpin, Godman, Griffith, Harlan, Hays, Keating, Lea, Mitchell, Patterson, Say and Troost. No lectures seem to have been delivered in the building at Twelfth and George's Streets, probably because of lack of accommodation, but" a fine lecture room was provided in the new hall on Broad Street, and provision was made in 1840 for renting the room to lecturers on science, literature and the liberal arts, on such terms as might be thought proper by the Lecture Committee. The use of the room for such purposes was not found to be of practical importance, and it was subsequently appropriated for the arrangement of a portion of the collection until the completion of another