552 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ard's collections ; his geological cabinet was also important, being 

 especially remarkable for fossil remains. The meteoric collec- 

 tion, begun in 1828, he stated to be the fourth in extent and value 

 known at the time of writing. 



As to the transfer of the combined cabinets to Amherst Col- 

 lege Prof. Shepard continues : 



" The removal of these collections from New Haven to Am- 

 herst, in 1847, was the result of an understanding entered into 

 between President Hitchcock and myself, that if the college 

 would cause a fireproof building to be erected for their recep- 

 tion, I would deposit them therein, at least for a term of years, 

 and with the hope, through arrangements afterward to be made, 

 of leaving them with the college as a permanent possession. 

 Such a building was provided in the Woods Cabinet ; and, more 

 recently, the conditions for the purchase of the collection have 

 been agreed upon." When he wrote the above he was engaged 

 in the more perfect cataloguing and arranging of the three col- 

 lections. 



When Walker Hall was built, the mineralogical cabinet was 

 removed to rooms in that building, and was destroyed when the 

 building was burned, in March, 1882. Although few could be 

 classed as combustibles, a diligent search in the debris of the 

 building revealed scarcely a trace of the specimens. This was a 

 sad loss. Prof. Shepard valued the collection at seventy-five 

 thousand dollars, and the college had actually paid forty thou- 

 sand dollars for it. There was only fifteen thousand dollars of 

 insurance on the whole contents of the building. 



Dr. Shepard held his professorship at Charleston uninter- 

 ruptedly until the civil war, and immediately after it closed 

 he went back, at the urgent invitation of his former colleagues, 

 and resumed his lectures. Ie 1869 he retired from the full dis- 

 charge of his duties, but continued to give some lectures until 

 shortly before his death. While in Charleston he discovered 

 rich deposits of phosphate of lime in the immediate vicinity of 

 that city. Their great value in agriculture and subsequent use in 

 the manufacture of superphosphate fertilizers proved an impor- 

 tant addition to the chemical industries of South Carolina. 



The collection that was burned in 1882 was the finest in the 

 United States, and was surpassed abroad only by that in the 

 British Museum. But Dr. Shepard's collecting had not stopped 

 with its formation, and he succeeded before his death in gather- 

 ing a second cabinet of meteorolites and minerals which ranked 

 among the very largest private collections. This he kept in a 

 fireproof cabinet at his private residence in New Haven. 



Prof. Shepard died, after a short illness, at Charleston, May 1, 

 1886. 



