rare collection of Pacific Sea birds which was the most valuable of its
kind in the world. In fact, the entire collection of birds ranked very
high, was visited by ornithologists from every country, and was the
pride of the city. The academy was founded in 1850, James Lick, the same
man who endowed the Lick Observatory, giving it $1,000,000, so it was on
a prosperous footing. It will take many years of active labor to replace
the losses of an hour or two of the reign of fire in this institution,
while much that it held is gone beyond restoration.

LOSS TO ART AND SCIENCE.

Art suffered as severely as science, the valuable collections in private
and public buildings being nearly all destroyed. We have spoken of the
rare paintings burned in the Bohemian Club building. The collections on
Nob's Hill suffered as severely. When the mansions here, the Fairmount
Hotel and Mark Hopkins Institute were approached by the flames, many
attempts were made to remove some of the priceless works of art from the
buildings. A crowd of soldiers was sent to the Flood and the Huntington
mansions and the Hopkins Institute to rescue the paintings. From
the Huntington home and the Flood mansion canvases were cut from the
framework with knives. The collections in the three buildings, valued in
the hundreds of thousands, in great part were destroyed, few being saved
from the ravages of the fire.

The destruction of the libraries, with their valuable collections of
books, was also a very serious loss to the city and its people. Of these
there were nine of some prominence, the Sutro Library containing many
rare books among its 200,000 volumes, while that of the Mechanics
Institute possessed property valued at $2,000,000. The Public Library
occupied a part of the City Hall, the new building proposed by the city,
with aid to the extent of $750,000 by Andrew Carnegie, being fortunately
still in embryo.

In the burning of the banks the losses were limited to the buildings,
their money and other valuables being securely locked in fireproof
vaults. But these became so heated by the flames that it was necessary
to leave them to a gradual cooling for days, during which their
treasures were unavailable, and those with deposits, small or large,
were obliged to depend on the benevolence of the nation for food, such
wealth as was left to them being locked up beyond their reach. It
was the same with the United States Sub-Treasury, which was entirely
dest