June, 1899.] 125 



THE NATURAE HISTORY MUSEUM, QUEEN'S 



COLLEGE, GAWAY. 



BY PROFESSOR RICHARD J. ANDERSON, M.D. 



[Plate 6.] 



The natural history collection is contained in five rooms. 

 Three of these serve for zoological specimens and apparatus, 

 and two for fossils and minerals. The Museum is reached 

 by a vestibule on the ground floor, which is joined by a stair- 

 case to the department above. The lower jaw of a Whale-bone 

 Whale is placed in the vestibule, and reaches nearly from floor to 

 ceiling. The length is nearly 18 feet, which means that the 

 original owner of the jaw was 70 feet long, or a little less. The 

 anchor placed between the sides o£ the jaw was found many 

 years ago on a rock in Galway Bay, called St. Margaret's Rock, 

 and belonged possibly to the White Falcon, a warship of the 

 Spanish Armada, wrecked on the Galway coast. A bit of 

 cable still remained attached to the anchor when the latter 

 was discovered. This is regarded by some as an undoubted 

 proof of its antiquity. 



The small Herbarium, near the anchor and whale's jaw, 

 contains specimens of ferns, and is meant to illustrate the 

 Carboniferous flora. The model of a salmon, 69 lbs. weight, 

 is shown on the first staircase landing. Flax, in all stages of 

 manufacture, appears in a case beside the huge salmon model. 

 The birds shot by Professor Valentine Ball, when in India, are 

 mostly in cases that line the walls of the staircase and landings. 



Two large sheet pictures represent prehistoric ideal scenes. 

 One is a Mesozoic scene, and has figures of some of the chief 

 reptiles of the period. The other is a representation of a 

 Kainozoic scene, with the Tusked Tiger, Mastodon, and Water 

 Elephant. Large deer forms are in the background and 

 tropical birds, whilst on the branches of a tree sit two apes, 

 of very human aspect, that view with seeming concern the 

 proximity of a Mastodon below. 



The Geographical Museum contains ten vertical cases that 

 stand out from the walls between the windows and seven 

 horizontal cases. The vertical cases in their upper parts serve 

 for the display of fossils arranged in a chronological series, 



A 



