Our Growing Collections                         27

of science as Napier and Newton, that the second advent of Christ
 

was imminent.
 

Mr. Everette L. DeGolyer has presented to the Geology Library
the first work on geology to be published in the New World. It
is Andres Manuel Del Rio's Elementos de Orictognosia, issued in
two volumes in Mexico City, 1795 and 1805. No copy of this
edition is listed as being in the Library of Congress, and only the
first part is recorded in the British Museum.

Del Rio himself settled in America in 18 2 9, and published several
geological studies in American journals. He became president of
the Geological Society of Pennsylvania in 1834-35.

Some two hundred volumes on hydraulics and related subjects,
the technical portion of the library of the late Dr. Boris A.
Bakhmeteff, have been presented in his name by Mrs. Bakhmeteff
to the Egleston Engineering Library. Dr. Bakhmeteff, formerly
Professor of Civil Engineering at Columbia, was internationally
known as an authority on fluid mechanics. His library comprised
books of the highest quality and usefulness and provided data
assisting him substantially in his research, which produced such
classics in engineering as Hydraulics of Open Channels and The
Mechanics of Turbulent Flow.

JNIot all of the acquisitions which come to the Libraries are books
or manuscripts or funds with which to provide such red corpuscles
for our library system. Some benefactions take the welcome form
of service. An especially notable example of this is to be found in
a recent letter of acceptance of an invitation to become a member
of the Friends of the Columbia Libraries. It came from Laura S.
Young, a master bookbinder who instructs in the Graphic Arts
division of General Studies. With Mrs. Young's permission a
portion of her letter follows:

"As evidence of my real interest in the welfare of the libraries,
I should like to offer to repair or restore, annually, one volume