100 Essay on Geology. 



some bones of the anoplotheriura, an extinct quadruped, the original having 

 been presented, by Mr. Pratt, to the Bath Museum. We have a very fair 

 series also from the basin of Paris. And of the most recent of the 

 tertiaries, (Lyell's Pleiocene), we have some interesting specimens, col- 

 lected by Dr. Daubeny, in Sicily j and a very complete Sub-appenine 

 series, from Sienna, for which we have a second time to express our ob- 

 ligations to a lady. Miss Rovve. 



When it is considered tliat all this has been effected in little more than 

 ten years, it cannot but enhance our views of the efficiency of the principles 

 on which our institution has been founded ; but assuredly the collections 

 themselves need no such apology to recommend them.* 



In addition to this public collection, many of the private cabinets of 

 Bristol deserve particular notice, especially those of Messrs. Johnson and 

 Cumberland j the former is particularly distinguished, by the truly gigantic 

 ichthyosaurian specimens which it contains. In the Bristol Library is a 

 small collection, formed almost a century back by the Rev. Mr. Catcott, the 

 author of a Theologico-Geological Treatise on the Deluge : he belonged to 

 the Hutchinsonian school — very fanciful in many respects — but which yet 

 gave rise to many very good observations on the phaenomena of valleys of 

 excavation. Mr. Catcott was particularly distinguished in tiiis respect ; 

 he was also the first discoverer of the ossiferous caverns of the Mendips — 

 indeed the first English author who opened the subject, which Dr. Buck- 

 land has since rendered so popular. His collection in the library contains 

 some interesting specimens of the bones of fossil elephants, &c. from the 

 Button caves. 



The sister institution of Bath, also possesses a very instructive, though 

 far less copious geological collection. The zealous interest of Mr. Pratt 

 cannot fail to render it daily more valuable. In some of our lesser towns 

 also, institutions on a smaller scale are rising ; we have especial pleasure 

 in noticing one such, recently established at Devizes. It has already ac- 

 quired a good collection of the organic remains of the neighbourhood, from 

 the liberality of Mr. Salmon. 



* To such of our readers as attended the course of geological lectures, delivered 

 during the last summer, by Mr. Worsley, for the benefit of the institution, many of 

 the stores which we have been enumerating, are more or less familiar. The great 

 advantage of such collections in general, as well as the efficiency of our own, in par- 

 ticular, have rarely been more strikingly made manifest, than when brought forward 

 in illustration of a course of lectures, among the ablest, most complete, and 

 nevertheless most popular, of any yet delivered within the walls of the Bristol 

 Institution. 



