40 DIRECTORY OF AMERICAN MUSEUMS 



Hoppin Eskimo exhibit and other smaller series. Much of the mate- 

 rial was presented to the university by Professor Marsh. 



GEOLOGY. The mineral collection is one of the best in America; 

 it was begun in 1804 by Professor Silliman and later developed by 

 Professors James D. Dana and Edward S. Dana. It comprises a 

 systematic series and several special collections, including the Gibbs 

 collection, purchased in 1825; famous collections of meteorites includ- 

 ing the Gibbs iron from Texas, the Weston meteorite, nearly 1000 

 specimens from the great shower of 1890 in Winnebago County, 

 Iowa, and the Hubert A. Newton collection. 



PALEONTOLOGY. These collections consist of 6500 drawers of 

 study vertebrate, invertebrate, and plant fossils, besides two rooms of 

 exhibition specimens, brought together in the main by Professors O. C. 

 Marsh and Charles E. Beecher since 1866, when the former was ap- 

 pointed professor of paleontology. Nearly all of this material is from 

 America and chiefly from the Rocky Mountain and Great Plains 

 regions. Among the more important fossil vertebrates are the triassic, 

 Jurassic, and cretaceous dinosaurs, the toothed birds from the creta- 

 ceous, the largest of pterodactyls (Pteranodon) , Archelon, the largest of 

 marine turtles, and an extensive series of tertiary mammals, among 

 which is the famous Marsh collection of American fossil horses that 

 formed the basis of Huxley's lectures in 1876. Among the inverte- 

 brates is the unique series of trilobites, preserving the antennae and 

 the ventral limbs, and three large slabs of crinoids from the paleozoic 

 and cretaceous. Of fossil cycads from the Jurassic of South Dakota 

 there are more than 500, preserving not only the microscopic structure 

 of the trunk but as well the unemerged flower buds. 



ZOOLOGY. Nearly all of the extensive collections are the work of 

 Professor Verrill. Among the invertebrates, mention may be made of 

 the corals (one of the most extensive collections in the country) and 

 the nearly complete collection of the marine invertebrates of New 

 England. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. In 1866, George Peabody, of London, but 

 of Massachusetts birth, entrusted to a board of trustees, selected by 

 himself, the sum of $150,000 to found and maintain a museum of 

 natural history, especially in the departments of zoology, geology, and 

 mineralogy, in connection with Yale College. Of this sum, $100,000 

 was devoted by Mr. Peabody to the erection, on land to be given for 

 that purpose by the president and fellows of Yale College, of a fire- 

 proof building, planned with special reference to its subsequent enlarge- 

 ment, to be, when completed, the property of Yale College. Of the 



