320 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
disconnected conclusions: the grain of wheat and 
its useless chaff would be hoarded together, and 
the attention frittered and distracted by infinity of 
detail. 
(225.) The sister university of Oxford has not 
yet, we believe, followed the noble example of 
Cambridge, by the institution of any particular 
society for cultivating zoology ; yet it is not without 
a nucleus, around which it may be hoped, ere long, 
will be gathered a few ardent and enquiring spirits, 
which may eventually conquer the prejudices that 
still remain against the admission of natural history 
as a branch of academic education. Oxford will 
ever be associated in the mind of the naturalist 
with the names of those early promoters of our 
science, Tradescant and Ashmole, who, in an age of 
comparative ignorance, devoted their time and_their 
fortune to the cultivation of natural history, and 
the formation of the earliest museum mentioned in 
our records. The remnant of this collection is now 
in existence, under the name of the Ashmolean 
Museum. As the reader will, doubtless, be gratified 
by the interesting account given ,of this museum by 
its present zealous curator, we shall here subjoin it 
for his perusal. “ The museum presented to the 
university, and deposited in Oxford, in the year 
1682, by Dr. Elias Ashmole, contained the first 
collection of objects illustrative of natural history 
which was ever formed in Britain; perhaps the 
first that was ever opened to public inspection in 
any nation of the whole world. This collection 
was made by the sagacity and industry of two 
ardent lovers of all that is beautiful and wonderful 
