of books added to the Library in the same period, and gives 

 no evidence as to how long the Museum had previously ex- 

 isted. The origin of the Museum was probably contained in 

 the minutes of the Library Society, but the volume covering 

 this period has, unfortunately, been missing for many years. 

 When time can be found for examination of the files of local 

 newspapers this important and interesting question may yet 

 be answered, but this Museum probably has already the dis- 

 tinction of being the oldest public museum of general natural 

 history existing in America to-day. The Harvard Univer- 

 sity collection of minerals, founded in 1793, is the only rival 

 of which we are aware. 



The following list is printed in full as a matter of record, 

 and as an indication of the widespread and sustained interest 

 in natural history in Charleston at this early period. It is 

 interesting to compare it with the museum established in 

 Philadelphia by Charles Wilson Peale, in 1785, which was said 

 to contain in 1800 "a mammoth's tooth from the Ohio, and a 

 woman's shoe from Canton: nests of the kind used to make 

 soup of, and a Chinese fan six feet long: bits of asbestos, 

 belts of wampum, stuffed birds, and feathers from the 

 Friendly Islands, scarfs, tomahawks, and long lines of por- 

 traits of great men of the Revolutionary War." * 



Both museums were mainly repositories of rare or curious 

 objects, and it was only under the auspices of the Literary 

 and Philosophical Society, and with the appointment of a 

 scientific curator, that the Charleston Museum attempted to 

 illustrate the general principles of natural history. 



Articles for the Museum presented 5th June, 1798— by 

 Captn. William Hall. — 



A case containing a collection of Insects, from Surinam. — 



*Goode, Museum History and AAuscums of History, p, 260, American Historical Associ- 

 ation Papers, 18S9. 



48 



