AS INSTRUMENTS OP EDUCATION. 15 



The general contents of a great college of science, so to call it, like 

 the building just briefly described, can be conceived, and I shall not 

 enter into many particulars. It should be said, however, that the 

 Oxford Museum contains the collections of the celebrated Professor 

 Buckland, and is rich in its palaeontological department. The extinct 

 forms of life that have existed on the globe are here seen, so far as 

 their remains have been found, in a connected series ; specimens in 

 abundance of the palaeozoic, mesozoie and caenozoic fossils. Here are 

 veritable plesiosauri (not casts), veritable icthyosauri, megalosauri, 

 pterodactyles, deinotheria, elephantes primogenii. There is also a very 

 striking collection, as it seemed to me, of beautifully prepared skeletons 

 (all properly articulated and set up in easy natural attitudes) of beasts, 

 birds, reptiles and fish ; the interior bony framework of each creature 

 as marvellous to behold as its outward presentment when clothed with 

 flesh and adorned with feathers, hair or scales. 



There is one feature in the interior of the museum which possesses 

 great interest. The series of pillars which support the lower and upper 

 arcades subserve a scientific purpose. They are, all of them, geological 

 specimens on a large scale systematically arranged. The shafts on the 

 west side are respectively, grey granite of Aberdeen, red granite of 

 Peterhead, porphyritic grey granite from Cornwall, green syenite from 

 Leicestershire, pale-reddish granite from Argyleshire, red granite of 

 Koss in Mull. On the north side the shafts are, Devonian limestone 

 from Torquay, mountain limestone from Cork, mountain limestone 

 from King's County, green serpentine from Galway, mountain lime- 

 stone from Limerick, mountain limestone from Cork, Devonian lime- 

 stone from St. Mary Church, and so on all round the lower quadrangle; 

 and again all round the upper gallery, the shafts of the columns follow 

 in order of geographical age and succession; in all 125 columns. 



Moreover the elaborately carved capitals of these columns, together 

 with a series of sixty corbels built into the walls, also elaborately carved, 

 are made to illustrate systematically the vegetable kingdom. On them 

 are sculptured, in such order as may assist the memory, and with such 

 attention to their natural aspect as may satisfy the botanist as well as 

 the artist, specimens of all the genera of plants and flowers. The capi- 

 tal of the column of porphyritic grey granite, for example, mentioned 

 a moment ago, is formed of leaves Of the date-palm ; the two adjacent 

 corbels of leaves of the fan-palm; the three together illustrate the 

 palmaceae. Again, the red granite column from Ross in Mull, and its 



