Notices of European Herbaria. 13 



the celebrated museum of zoology and anatomy, or the cabinet 

 of mineralogy, geology, and fossil remains, which, newly ar- 

 ranged in a building recently erected for its reception, has just 

 been thrown open to the public. The botanical collections occu- 

 py a portion of this new building. A large room on the first 

 floor, handsomely fitted up with glass cases, contains the cabinet 

 of fruits, seeds, sections of stems, and curious examples of veg- 

 etable structure from every part of the known world. Among 

 them we find an interesting suite of specimens of the wood, and 

 another comprising the fruits, or nuts, of nearly all the trees of 

 this country ; both collected and prepared by the younger Mi- 

 chaux. The herbaria now occupy a large room or hall, immedi- 

 ately over the former, perhaps 80 feet long and 30 feet wide 

 above the galleries, and very conveniently lighted from the roof. 

 Beneath the galleries are four or five small rooms on each side, 

 lighted from the exterior, used as cabinets for study and for sep- 

 arate herbaria, and above them the same number of smaller 

 rooms or closets, occupied by duplicate and unarranged collec- 

 tions. The cases which contain the herbaria occupy the walls 

 of the large hall and of the side rooms. Their plan may serve 

 as a specimen of that generally adopted in France. The shelves 

 are divided into compartments in the usual manner ; but instead 

 of doors, the cabinet is closed by a curtain of thick and coarse 

 brown linen, kept extended by a heavy bar attached to the bot- 

 tom, which is counterpoised by concealed weights, and the cur- 

 tain is raised or dropped by a pulley. Paper of a very ordinary 

 quality is generally used, and the specimens are attached, either 

 to half sheets or to double sheets, by slips of gummed paper, or 

 by pins, or sometimes the specimen itself is glued to the paper. 

 Genera or other divisions are separated by interposed sheets, hav- 

 ing the name written on a projecting slip. 



According to the excellent plan adopted in the arrangement of 

 these collections, which is due to Desfontaines, three kinds of 

 herbaria have been instituted, viz. 1. The general herbarium. 

 2. The herbaria of particular works or celebrated authors, which 

 are kept distinct, the duplicates alone being distributed in the 

 general collection. 3. Separate herbaria of different countries, 

 which are composed of the duplicates taken from the general her- 

 barium. To these, new accessions from different countries are 

 added, which from time to time are assorted and examined, and 



