NATURAL HISTORY. 251 



free from mould. When there is not time at noon to dry the papers 

 in the sun they should he dried at night hy the fire, when, also, the 

 dried specimens are placed at the hottom of the hundle, making room 

 on top for the next day's collection. A tin collecting box is very 

 necessary; plants maybe preserved for two or three days in one if 

 kept damp and cool. ' It is also convenient in collecting land shells, 

 which is generally considered part of a botanist's duty. A collector 

 should also always be provided with plenty of ready made seed papers^ 

 not only for preserving seeds, but mosses and minute plants. Many 

 seeds and i'ruits cannot be put in the herbarium, particularly if of a 

 succulent nature, causing mouldiness, ard others iorm irregularities 

 and inequalities in the papers, thus breaking specimens and causing 

 email ones and seeds to drop out. Fruits of this kind should be 

 numbered to correspond with the specimen, and kept in the saddle- 

 bag, or some such place. It is necessary, in order to make good 

 specimens, to avoid heavy pressure and keep the papers well dried, 

 otherwise they get mouldy, turn black, or decay. 



The seeds and i'ruits of' plants should be procured whenever prac- 

 ticable, and slowly dried. These will often serve to reproduce a 

 species, otherwise not transportable or capable of preservation. 



On board ship it is all-important to keep the collections from get- 

 ting wet with salt water. The papers can generally be dried at the 

 galley. The whole herbarium should be exposed to the sun as often 

 as possible, and frequently examined, and the mould brushed off with 

 a feather or camel-hair pencil. 



Jn collecting alga?, corallines, or the branched, horny, or calcareous 

 corals, care should be taken to bring away the entire specimen with 

 its base or root. The coarser kinds may be dried in the air, (but not 

 exposed to too powerful a sun,) turning them from time to time. 

 These should not be washed in fresh water, if to be sent any distance. 

 The more delicate species should be brought home in salt water, and 

 washed carefully in fresh, then trantferred to a shallow basin of clean 

 fresh water, and floated out. A piece of white paper of proper sjze 

 is then slipped underneath, and raised gently out of the water with 

 the specimen on its proper surface. After finally adjusting the 

 branches with a sharp point or brush, the different sheets of specimens 

 are to be arranged between blotters of bibulous paper and cotton 

 cloth, and subjected to gentle pressure. These blotters must be fre- 

 quently changed till the specimens are dry. 



§IX. MINERALS AND FOSSILS. 



The collections in mineralogy and pala3ontology are, amongst all, 

 those which are most easily made; whilst, on the other hand, their 

 weight, especially when on a march, will prevent their being gathered 

 on an extensive scale. 



All the preparation usually needed for preserving minerals^ and 



fossils consists in wrapping the specimens separately in paper, with a 



.label inside for the locality, and packing so as to prevent rubbing. 



Crumbling fossils may be soaked to advantage in a solution of glue. 



Fossils of all kinds should be collected. Minerals and samples of 



