pecuniarily poor, and therefore, at present, unable to plaster over the walls of their workshop, merely to make them agreeable to the eyes of those who do not care to view the wonders within. The building of which we speak was founded on the 25th of May, 1839, by the “Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia,” a society which was begun on the 25th of January, 1812, and incorporated by an act of the Legislature of the State of Pennsylvania on the 24th of March, 1817. The object of the Institution is to cultivate the Natural Sciences exclusively, and to diffuse a knowledge of them amongst the people. Of the 409,000 inhabitants of Philadelphia, about 150 only are now engaged in this laudable enterprise, which is little known and little understood by the community. Its members include representatives of almost all vocations; clergymen, physicians, lawyers, merchants and mechanics, who devote simply leisure moments to the study of natural history. For this purpose they have formed a museum and library of books on the natural sciences and on the arts. At this time, the museum contains nearly 150,000 objects of natural history, and the library almost 14,000 volumes. The “Hall of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia” is forty-five feet front on Broad street, and one hundred and fifteen feet on George street, with an elevation of fifty feet. The style of architecture is plain and unpretending; and, as already intimated, the exterior remains unfinished for want of funds, all the resources of the Society being required to meet the current expenses incurred for preserving the objects in the museum, binding, books, warming and lighting, etc. etc.