A SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND LABOURS OF DR. ROBB. 13 



of a scientific character possessed by the latter at the time of Dr. 

 Robb's decease, shows with what judgment his selections were made. 

 The extent of this collection would have been much larger had it not 

 been for the unfortunate shipwreck, on Sable Island, of a steamer 

 containing a large number of books, among them the publications of 

 the Ray Society, destined for him, besides a large quantity of furniture, 

 crockery, «tc. He must also have had an extended correspondence, 

 one proof of which is of personal interest to the writer. Soon after 

 assuming the duties laid down by Dr. Robb, he had occasion to make 

 a detailed inventory of the apparatus and specimens in the chemical 

 laboratory and museum of the college, and quite early in the search 

 was at once surprised and gratified by finding a considerable num- 

 ber of packages, the written labels of which were recognized as 

 being in the handwriting of the writer's father, the late Prof. J. W. 

 Bailey, of West Point, N. Y. They contained samples of the so-called 

 Fossil Infusoria, and, as the gentleman last referred to was at that 

 time the principal authority in America on these microscopic organisms, 

 he had evidently been written to by Dr. Robb that the latter might 

 thereby be the better able to identify any similar forms which he 

 might meet with here. 



Dr. Robb's choice of apparatus, like that of books, was most 

 judicious. Nothing but the best would satisfy him, and his chemical 

 laboratory, though small, was a model of convenient arrangement, and, 

 for the time and place, of ample equipment. The necessities of the 

 case made him also his own mechanic, and in one of his letters he 

 refers to his having been required to polish and repair a lot of instru- 

 ments injured in, but recovered from, the Sable Island disaster, and 

 which he describes as a "shocking wreck." His laboratory was fully 

 supplied with carpenter's tools, and there is no doubt that he knew 

 how to use them. He was a good analyst, and many specimens of 

 ores now in the university collection are accompanied by labels bearing 

 the results of his quantitative determinations. 



His association with the Fredericton Athemeuni has already been 

 referred to. In this connection he prepared and published an almanac, 

 of which he says, in a letter to his mother, " I can tell you it cost me 

 a good deal of work." It was issued in 1849, is a volume of 142 pages, 

 of which the object, as avowed on the preface, was neither profit nor 

 remuneration, but the " furnishing of a compendium of information, 

 useful for the time and place." He adds, " In a colony like this, 

 where as yet food for the mind is but scantily supplied, care ought tO' 



