iv "WET' PREPARATIONS 59 



this shall be done, the brain which receives the 

 news, the nerves which transmit the message, 

 all these were selected, graded, and exquisitely 

 prepared to be set before the new generation 

 of students. To give them one and all the 

 means to acquire exact knowledge, by seeing the 

 train of evolution of every part, Flower applied 

 the same process of selection to every important 

 factor in the mammalian frame. No order was 

 omitted from these synoptic pictures. The whales, 

 seals, primates, carnivora, deer, horses, antelopes, 

 rodents, edentata, and others all took their due 

 place in the line. Contemporaneous discoveries of 

 new fossil mammals made an interesting addition. 



He next turned his attention to what are known 

 as " wet " preparations, or examples of the soft parts 

 of biological specimens, involving not only the most 

 careful and difficult preparation by cutting into 

 sections, dissecting, colouring, and labelling, but 

 presenting the additional problem of preservation 

 from decay. This last is and generally has been 

 achieved by keeping the objects in clear spirits of 

 wine in sealed glass vessels. This plan had so far 

 answered that in the Museum there were many 

 preparations which had been made and put up by 

 John Hunter himself. Hunter died in 1793, so 

 these were more than eighty years old, and still in 

 good condition. There were also some examples 

 prepared by Reish in the days of Peter the Great, 

 dating from 1717. To improve upon methods so 



