The Boston Society of Natural History, 1830–1930

Abstract

FEW societies of natural history can boast such a fine record of achievement both in the encouragement of research and in public education as that of Boston, which recently has celebrated its hundredth anniversary. Boston in 1830 was the centre of a populous seaboard, through which most of the foreign commerce entered the United States, while it possessed a large fleet of clippers, merchantmen, and whalers. The land behind was settled by an industrious population, who feared only God and the devil. The Almighty gave such animals and plants as were beneficial, while Satan was responsible for the rest, about which it were safest to be incurious. The farmer's existence was unspeakably hard and his amusements were few. In the ports, however, there was great interest as to foreign lands, and skippers took a pride in bringing curios to deck such local museums as that of New Salem. The museum ‘instinct’ thus started began to spread to Nature in the country behind them, from which the Indians had already disappeared, but ideas were chaotic.

The Boston Society of Natural History, 1830–1930.

Capt. Percy R. Creed. Pp. xii + 117. (Boston, Mass.: Printed for the Society, 1930.)