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 cul'ivation 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 



