98 Essay on Geology. 



dering its inhabitants more generally acquainted with the stores of this 

 description which they possess, and thus rendering those stores more 

 available to the great purposes of general information for which they are 

 formed. 



To begin with our cabinet of minerals ; this, which was originally pur- 

 chased from Mr. Blisset in 1824, and has since received additions, is quite 

 sufficiently extensive to be fully adequate to every purpose, as a general 

 collection ; the specimens, moreover, are remarkably good and charac- 

 teristic. Those who have made Crystallography, the most scientific branch 

 of mineralogy, their study, have expressed themselves much satisfied with 

 what we possess, illustrative of this department. The cabinet contains 

 above two thousand specimens, which are arranged according to the clas- 

 sification of Mr. Phillips, and entered in catalogues open to the visitants, 

 for the purpose of reference. The well-used state of these catalogues suffi- 

 ciently attests, that our residents have become fully aware of the utility of 

 this portion of our museum. 



Our geological stores, although in trnth very superior to the former, and 

 we believe quite unrivalled out of the metropolis, are not nearly so well 

 known, because, from the deficiency of cabinets, it has hitherto been im- 

 possible to arrange them ; but this deficiency is now in the course of 

 removal J and we trust, that before tiie first annual volume of this journal 

 is closed, matters will wear a very different aspect. Most proud shall we 

 be, if our humble efforts can in any manner assist in promoting so desirable 

 a consummation. 



We shall at present describe our general stores, first stating, however, 

 that (what must be always of very primary importance in every local 

 institution) a collection of specimens intended to illustrate the local Geo- 

 logy, and thus most effectually to assist and direct our visitants in their 

 examination of that district, is now in the course of formation. 



As fossil Zoology has long been the basis of scientific Geology, we may 

 sufficiently indicate the extent of our collections, by shortly noticing the 

 specimens which we possess illustrative of the organic remains of the several 

 formations, beginning with the lowest fossiliferous strata. Of the transi- 

 tion limestone fossils, we have a very fair collection presented by Dr. Cook, 

 of Tort worth. 



In our series of carboniferous limestone, the collection of encrinites, (formed 

 by our late curator. Mi. Miiller) is well known to be unrivalled. It con- 

 tains the original materials of that important work, which De Blainville, 

 one of the most zealous zoologists of France, has recently mentioned, (in 

 his Actinologia) together with that of Goldfuss, as the only two works 

 published by geologists, exact enough to throw much light on any of the 

 races of Zoophytes. M. Agassiz stated, that he found our ichthyological 

 remains, from this formation, more ample than any he had elsewhere seen ; 

 they are at present, together with those belonging to many other of 



