Sistoricdl and Type Collections. 141 



had originally a number attached to it, corresponding to a carefully- OALLEBT 

 prepared manuscript catalogue, still preserved, which contnins ^' 

 many curious entries concerning the various objects in the Museum. 

 In the course of more than 140 years, many of these numbers 

 have become detached from the objects or obliterated by cleaning. 

 But as all fossils at this early date were looked upon merely an 

 curiosities, but little attention was paid to the formation or 

 locality whence they were derived. Histoiically, the collection 

 has immense interest to us, marking the rapid strides which the 

 science of Geology has made of late years, especially as regards 

 its more careful and systematic methods of study. 



The next collection in chronological order is the Brander 

 Collection, and is the earliest one in which types of named and 

 described Sj)ecies have been preserved, Brander 



This collection was formed by Gustavus Brander, T.R.S., ^^gg^ * 

 F.S.A.., in the earlier half of the last century; and an account 

 of the same, with eight quarto plates, was published in 1766, Table- 

 entitled, " Fossilia Hantoniensia Collecta, et in Musa3o Britannico *'**® ' 

 deposita, a Gustavo Brander, 1766." The descriptions of the 

 species given in the work were written by Dr. Solander, one of the 

 officers of the British Museum. They were ''collected in the 

 county of Hampshire, out of the cliffs by the sea-coast between 

 Christchurch and Lymington, but more especially about the cliffs 

 by the village of Hordwell, nearly midway betwixt the two former 

 places" {op. cit., p. 111). 



Only a small proportion of the original 120 figured specimens 

 are now capable of being identified, the rest having become, in 

 the course of 130 years, commingled with the far more numerous 

 and later Eocene Tertiary acquisitions, and so have lost their 

 connection with this admirable memoir. The engravings of the 

 shells are equal to any modern published work descriptive of 

 the fossils of the Eocene formation; but the names^ given by 

 Dr. Solander are in many instances incorrect, according to our 

 present knowledge of the genera of Mollusca. 



The next series to which attention is directed, is the collection 

 of William Smith, LL.D. Tliis was commenced about the year ^^^^.J^- 

 1787, and purchased by the Trustees in 1816, a supplemental collection, 

 collection being added by Dr. Smith in 1818. • 



It is remarkable as the first attempt made to identify the ^^^^^ ^^^^ 

 various strata forming the solid crust of England and Wales by waU. 



