290 
NATURE 
[Aug. 11, 1870 
The class-rooms and laboratories are extremely well 
adapted and arranged; there are small cabinets of speci- 
mens of great assistance to the professors in delivering 
their lectures. It also possesses a fine equatorial tele- 
scope, made by Clark, having an object-glass with an 
aperture of nine inches. For this there is a properly con- 
structed tower, furnished with all the necessary instru- 
ments for astronomical observations. 
The staff of professors, lecturers, &c., numbers twenty- 
three, and the number of students is now about 150. 
Amongst the distinguished men holding appointments 
here, the names of Dana, Silliman, and Marsh are of 
European renown. 
In Philadelphia we find valuable scientific collections 
belonging to the Academy of Science, an old and still 
very vigorous scientific establishment, though sadly want- 
ing more room for its collections. Amongst the treasures 
of these collections there are several that merit particular 
notice. 
Professor Hawkins has just set up in the museum the 
skeleton of the Hadrosaurus of the New Jersey Green- 
sand, one of the most gigantic of the immense mesozoic 
reptiles. Besides this extremely valuable skeleton and other 
remains, there are portions of the skeleton of a gigantic 
carnivorous reptile of the same age, with formidable cut- 
ting teeth, similar to those of the megalosaurus, and, like 
it, possessing hooked claws, some of which must have 
been ten inches long. 
Belonging to the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences 
is a fine scientific library, but both it and the collections 
suffer from want of space. The museuin also contains 
a fine and very complete collection of American skulls, 
which Messrs. Morton, Wilson, and Meigs have so elabo- 
rately worked out. At Philadelphia two valuable works 
on paleontology have been undertaken. One of these 
just published was reviewed in NATURE for June 16, and 
is an extremely valuable monograph on “ The Fossil 
Mammals of America,” by Prof. Leidy. The other work 
is an equally valuable one, being a monograph on the 
“ Fossil Reptiles of America,” by Prof. Cope. 
Proceeding from Philadelphia to “the queenly city,” 
Baltimore, we find there an Academy and a band of zealous 
naturalists, as Tyson, Morris, and Dalrymple. The Pea- 
body Institute here was founded by Mr. Peabody, who 
was a resident in this city for some time, and who 
presented to the town the sum of 100,000 dollars for 
these objects, viz.: (1) to found an extensive library ; 
(2) to provide for the delivery of lectures in science 
and art ; to found (3) an academy of music, and (4) a 
gallery of art. 
The building of the institute was in 1868 being rapidly 
proceeded with, and is probably now finished. There was 
then no museum, but the library had already become ex- 
tremely valuable. 
In Washington is located the splendid Smithsonian In- 
stitution, of world-wide fame, founded for “ the increase 
and the diffusion of knowledge amongst men,” now under 
the direction of Prof. Henry, the able president of the 
American Academy of Sciences, and who is now in this 
country. The chief work hitherto done by the Smith- 
sonian Institution has been in the subjects of geology 
and natural history, and it already possesses extremely 
valuable collections, carefully and systematically arranged 
under the able supervision of Prof. Baird. This institu- 
tion sets a glorious example to other and much older 
museums in their treatment of those anxious and willing 
to make use of the accumulated treasures. Their collec- 
tions are open to the inspection of any naturalist from any 
part of the world, who, in some cases, are accommodated 
with rooms for their work, as well as access to the 
specimens. Under Prof. Henry’s personal superintendence 
a fine collection of American antiquities is in process of 
formation, and the number and importance of these ob- 
jects of early warfare and art make the museum extremely 
valuable and instructive. 
It was in Washington that President Lincoln was so 
basely assassinated. The building where the event took 
place, formerly Ford’s theatre, has been converted into a 
museum of a character it is believed perfectly unique. 
This, the Army Medical Museum, contains a series of 
excellently mounted preparations of great professional 
interest, remarkable chiefly for its profuse exhibition of 
the effects of shot and shell, and other implements of war 
on the human frame. The materials for this museum 
were chiefly collected during the American Civil War. It 
may well be said that the Americans are a wonderful 
people ; there are few other nations which would have been 
capable of so utilising the results of a protracted interne- 
cine war as to make them available in after years towards 
the advancement of medical science and the alleviation of 
human pain. 
In addition to the purely medical collection, this museum 
also contains a fine and well-arranged collection of skulls 
of the various aboriginal American tribes, with a few 
Mexican and Peruvian. There is also a fine collection 
of skulls in the Smithsonian Institution. 
Before concluding this paper it is necessary to mention 
two separate munificent gifts, by which the late Mr. Pea- 
body did so much to promote the cause of science in 
America, The Peabody donation to Yale College has 
been previously alluded to. One result of this is that Yale 
College, which was formerly devoted to other subjects, 
has recently made great progress in science, and bids 
fair to become one of the leading scientific institutions in 
America. It still lacks, however, funds towards founding 
more scientific professorships. Besides this donation, 
Mr. Peabody in 1867 left 140,000 dollars “‘ for the promo- 
tion among the inhabitants of my native county (Essex 
County, Massachusetts) of the study and knowledge of 
the natural and physical sciences and their application to 
the useful arts.” 
From this gift started the Peabody Academy of Sciences 
in Salem, Massachusetts, which was inaugurated Aucust 18, 
1869. The objects of the foundation are still kept in view 
by the formation of a museum, which, besides a general 
collection, shall embrace a complete collection of local 
specimens from the whole county, and shall keep up and 
augment the museum of East Indian antiquities collected 
by the East Indian marine societies, and by the formation 
of a series of lectures on science, to be yearly delivered. 
And, lastly, the nature of the valuable museum which 
Professor Agassiz is collecting at Harvard College, Cam- 
bridge, aided by Government grants and private subscrip- 
tions, will have been sufficiently learnt from the article 
on the Harvard Museum, which appeared in NATURE 
for June 23. 
