40 On the Formation of a Local Mitseum. 



The Mineral department may be arranged according to 

 the successive strata, or layers, of which the soil consists. 

 The several kinds of peat, sand, gravel, clay, &c., may be 

 preserved in glass jars, and the various fossils which may be 

 from time to time discovered should be arranged according to 

 their position in the scale of animated beings. 



The Vegetable department may have two leading divisions, 

 the first comprising the non-flowering plants, as Lichens, 

 Fuuf/i, Mosses, and Ferns, sometimes called Acotyledons 

 (without cotyledons or seed-leaves), or Cry2)toganis (concealed 

 fructification, or seedless), because they do not bear manifest 

 flowers, nor produce seeds containing an embryo, as do the 

 great classes of Dicotyledons and Monocotyledons. 



The second division comprises the flowering plants, and 

 may have two leading subdivisions, illustrative of the two 

 great classes into which flowering plants are to be found 

 grouped in nature. 



These subdivisions are named, according to the manner in 

 which the wood is formed, Exogens and Endogens. 



Exogens (producing outwards), so called from the new wood 

 being formed in rings placed outside the old, are also called 

 Dicotyledons, from the seed having two rudimentary leaves ; 

 the plants in their early condition, while yet enclosed in the 

 seed, nearly always having two (sometimes more) small 

 opposed lobes or leaflets. In this subdivision the parts of 

 the flowers are most frequently in yzi-es or fours, and the small 

 veins of the leaves are usually irregularly netted, as e.g. in 

 the oak and the beech. 



Endogens (producing inwards), so called because the plants, 

 having woody stems, form bundles of wood which do not 

 usually increase in thickness year by year; once formed, 

 they remain unaltered in diameter, scattered through the 

 pith-like substance of the stem. In this class (also called 

 Monocotyledons from the seed having only one rudimentary 

 leaf) the j)arts of the flowers are usually in threes, and the 

 veins of the leaves, excepting in a few orders, are parallel, or 

 if diverging are not irregularly netted, as e.g. in wheat, 

 grass, reeds, and rushes. 



