Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
Dr. Wyman had found an eager companion in his studies and excursions,
during several years preceding his death, in Frederick W. Putnam, who
was almost the only man in the neighborhood of Boston having either
interest or capability (not to speak of opportunity) for such pursuits.
A Salem lad, he was one of that group of students whom the elder Agassiz
gathered round him when he began teaching at Harvard,--a group
comprising Alpheus Hyatt, A. E. Verrill, J. A. Allen, Edward S. Morse,
N. S. Shaler, A. S. Packard, Jr., and others now of worldwide
reputation. Putnam was an all-round zoologist, but his specialty was
fishes. Accident, nearly thirty years ago, turned his attention to the
shell-heaps and the primitive implements of his home-neighborhood. The
only man to whom he could go for guidance in studying these was Dr.
Jeffries Wyman, at that time his instructor in comparative anatomy. Thus
the two men were drawn more and more together, and when Wyman organized
the new museum Putnam found much time for helping him, although at that
time he was in charge of the Salem Museum, an editor of "The American
Naturalist," a publisher, and the permanent secretary of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, a position which he still
retains. It happened, consequently, that upon Dr. Wyman's decease Mr.
Putnam was the only man suitable and available to become his successor,
and he was quickly appointed to fill the vacancy.
Sixty thousand dollars of the original fund had been set aside by
Peabody as a building-fund, but he decreed that this sum should be
allowed to grow until it amounted to at least a hundred thousand
dollars. This limit was attained in ten years, and in 1876 a building
was begun for the accommodation of the museum. The college gave the
ground,--a lot on Divinity Avenue, nearly opposite the old Divinity
School, and close to the great structure occupied by the Museum of
Comparative Zoology. Surrounded by green lawns and avenues of old trees,
it is the pleasantest spot in all that charming city. The building was
completed and entered in 1878. It is of brick, four stories in height,
thoroughly fire-proof, simple in design, and tasteful in ornamentation.
The present structure is only a fifth of what the whole building is
designed ultimately to be. Two rooms yet remain to be opened to the
public, but their fitting will not long be delayed. Its spacious doors
open on Divinity Avenue, and there let us enter and glance at its
treasures.
The entrance-hall is a square well in the centre of the building,
accommodating the broad stairways and galleries, and affording room for
many large objects, such as carved figures of stone and the models of
the ruined houses and present pueblos of the village Indians of the
Southwest. The walls are of finished brick.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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