BISECTIONS FOB, COLLECTING FOSSILS. 475 



16. Great care should be bestowed on the proper packing 

 of the objects. Each specimen is to be wrapped up in two 

 papers ; the inner soft, and less substantial than the outer. 

 Put at the bottom of the packing-case a layer of hay, chaff, 

 moss, or other soft substance, perfectly dry. Place on it 

 the specimens edgewise and in close contact with each other, 

 so that nothing can displace them. Fill up the interstices 

 with moss or tow, and place the other specimens in the same 

 manner, layer upon layer, until the box is nearly full, when 

 the remaining vacuities are to be closely filled up with the 

 same moss, &c., before the lid is fastened. The use of saw- 

 dust for this purpose is not to be recommended. Loose 

 fragile shells and other small delicate objects are best packed 

 by putting them, enveloped in cotton, in rows, and rolling 

 these up in sheets of stiff paper. 



17. Still greater care is to be bestowed on such minera- 

 logical specimens as present delicate crystallisations. These, 

 after being wrapped up loosely in silk paper, should be put 

 up separately in a chip-box each, and the empty space filled 

 up with cotton. The chip-boxes are to be placed at the 

 bottom of the packing-case. Minerals, not soft or brittle, 

 may be wrapped up and packed nearly in the same manner 

 as geological specimens. They are to be placed upright in 

 rows one above the other, and with their principal surfaces 

 parallel to two opposite sides of the packing-case. The 

 weight of such case for land-carriage, or shipping, should not 

 exceed one hundred weight. 



18. As the geological collector cannot be expected to 

 discover, in his excursions, many specimens of simple 

 minerals desirable to be placed in the national collection, he 

 will do well, if he fall in with persons acquainted with, and in 

 the habit of procuring such, to secure their services, with a 

 view to obtain all mineral substances that are peculiar to any 

 particular colony or tract of country ; or that claim attention 

 on the score of their superior beauty and perfection of 

 crystallisation. This latter character should be particularly 

 attended to ; it is, however, to be observed, that minerals 

 not presenting it, may nevertheless prove highly interesting 

 in other respects, and that a remarkable locality alone may 



often lend importance to a mineral which is abundantly met 

 with at home. 



