POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



283 



such institutions by city, State, or Federal 

 Government would not have been considered 

 a legitimate act. When the General Govern- 

 ment came into the possession of extensive 

 collections as the result of the Wilkes Ex- 

 ploring Expedition in 1S42, they were placed 

 in charge of a private organization, the Na- 

 tional Institution, and later, together with 

 other similar materials, in that of a corpora- 

 tion, the Smithsonian Institution, which was 

 for a long period of years obliged to pay 

 largely for their care out of its income from 

 a private endowment. It was not until 18*76 

 that the existence of a National Museum, as 

 such, was definitely recognized in the pro- 

 ceedings of Congresss, and its financial sup- 

 port fully provided for. In early days our 

 principal cities had each a public museum, 

 founded and supported by private enter- 

 prise. The earliest general collection was 

 that formed at Nonvalk, Conn., prior to the 

 Revolution, by a man named Arnold, de- 

 scribed as " a curious collector of Ameri- 

 can birds and insects." This it was which 

 first awakened the interest of President John 

 Adams in the natural sciences. He visited 

 it several times, as he traveled from Boston 

 to Philadelphia, and his interest culminated 

 in the foundation of the American Academy 

 of Arts and Sciences. In 1790 Dr. Ilosack 

 brought to America from Europe the first 

 cabinet of minerals ever seen on this conti- 

 nent. The earliest public establishment 

 was the Philadelphia Museum, founded by 

 Charles Wilson Peale in 1785, which had 

 for a nucleus a stuffed paddle-fish and the 

 bones of a mammoth, and was for a time 

 housed in the building of the American 

 Philosophical Society. In 1800 it was full 

 of popular attractions. The Baltimore Mu- 

 seum was managed by Rembrandt Peale, and 

 was in existence as early as 1815 and as 

 late as 1830. Earlier efforts wore made, 

 however, in Philadelphia. Dr. Chovet, of 

 that city, had a collection of wax anatomi- 

 cal models made by him in Europe ; and 

 Prof. John Morgan, of the University of 

 Pennsylvania, who learned his method from 

 the Hunters, in London, and Sue, in Paris, 

 had begun to form such a collection before 

 the Revolution. The Columbian Museum 

 and Turell's Museum, in Boston, are spoken 

 of in the annals of the day ; and there was 

 a small collection in the attic of the State 



House in Hartford. The Western Museum, 

 in Cincinnati, was founded about 1815, by 

 Robert Best, M. D., afterward of Lexing- 

 ton, Ky., who seems to have been a capable 

 collector, and who contributed matter to 

 Goodman's American Natural History. In 

 1818 a society styled the Western Museum 

 Society was formed among the citizens, 

 which, though hardly a scientific organiza- 

 tion, seems to have taken a somewhat lib- 

 eral and public-spirited view of what a mu- 

 seum should be. With the establishment 

 of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Phil- 

 adelphia in 1812, and the New York Lyceum 

 of Natural History, the history of American 

 scientific museums had its true beginning. 



The Question of Tertiary Man. The an- 

 tiquity of man and an account of anthropo- 

 logical museums were the chief topics dis- 

 cussed in the address of Mr. John Evans, 

 President of the Anthropological Section of 

 the British Association. The question of 

 the antiquity of man, the author said, is sus- 

 ceptible of being separated from any specu- 

 lations as to the generic descent of man- 

 kind ; and even were it satisfactorily an- 

 swered to-day, new facts might to-morrow 

 come to light that would again throw the 

 question open. On any view of probabili- 

 ties, it is unlikely that we shall ever discov- 

 er the exact cradle of our race, or be able to 

 point to any object as the first product of the 

 industry and intelligence of man. We may, 

 however, the author thought, hope that from 

 time to time fresh discoveries may be made 

 of objects of human art, under such circum- 

 stances and conditions that we may infer 

 with certainty that at some given point in the 

 world's history mankind existed, and in suffi- 

 cient numbers, for the relics that attest this 

 existence to show a correspondence among 

 themselves, even when discovered at remote 

 distances from each other. After reviewing 

 the course of discovery of prehistoric man, 

 and the considerations on which the attempt 

 is based to show that he existed in the Ter- 

 tiary, Mr. Evans declared his conclusion that 

 on the whole the present verdict as to Tertiary 

 man must be in the form of " not proven." 

 When we consider the vast amount of time 

 comprised in the Tertiary period, with its 

 three great principal subdivisions of the 

 Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene, and when we 



