348 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Oct 



mens, sent in a great measure by missionaries, or by men on mis- 

 sionary ground. Many of these specimens possess a special 

 interest from the sacred localities from which they came. But 

 they are numerous enough from some extensive regions to give a 

 tolerable idea of the geology ; as for instance Syria and Palestine, 

 especially Mount Lebanon, Armenia, and the north-west part of 

 Persia, and the Grhaut Mountains of India. 



" My collection of fossil footmarks was begun in 1835. For as 

 soon as I had turned my attention to Ichnology, I commenced the 

 accumulation of specimens, and from that day to the present I 

 have never ceased to gather in all which I could honestly obtain. 

 For no other part of the cabinet have I labored so hard or encoun- 

 tered so many difficulties. True, for some years at first I had the 

 field essentially, to myself; and had I then been fully aware of its 

 richness and extent, I might have secured a large amount of speci- 

 mens at a reasonable rate. But the subject opened upon me 

 gradually, and the disclosures made by my writings attracted 

 others into the field who became uncompromising competitors in 

 the way of collecting, and with some it became a matter of trade. 

 The consequence was that the value of specimens rose to almost 

 fabulous prices. The man who had made the largest collection 

 was Dexter Marsh, of Greenfield, who was himself a quarryman, 

 and had the ambition, as he told me, to get together the largest 

 collection in the world. He succeeded, if we take into account 

 the quality of the specimens. But, poor man ! he died before his 

 work was done ; having, in my opinion, hastened his decease by 

 excessive labor in the hot sun in getting out beryls and other 

 minerals. His executors sold his collections at auction. I knew 

 they would sell high, for I was one of the appraisers, and we marked 

 them high. But I could not see those fine sj)ecimens all scattered 

 through the land without making an effort to raise some money to 

 secure some of them, and I adopted this plan. My collection of 

 footmarks had become so large, that, in the opinion of so good a 

 judge as Professor C. U. Shepard, its value was not less than 

 $3,500 ; and that it could be disposed of for at least $2,000 in 

 cash. In a circular to several benevolent gentlemen, I ofiered to 

 present this to the College, if others would furnish me with six or 

 seven hundred dollars with which to secure some of the slabs at 

 Marsh's auction. It so happened, or rather, as I view it. Provi- 

 dence so ordered it, that I first addressed John Tappan, Esq. 

 He responded by a subscription of $500. To this extraordinary 



