OUR COLLECTION. 



BY THE CURATOR. 



Whenever a group of persons of congenial minds 

 join themselves together for the purpose of study and 

 mutual benefit in any line of scientific investigation, a 

 collection of specimens illustrating their chosen field of 

 work is very sure to be begun. Members of the associa- 

 tion will bring any curious or doubtful specimens they 

 may have or find to the meetings to be shown and talked 

 over, and so the beginning of a collection will be made. 

 As a pearl grows from its small nucleus by continued 

 accretions from without, so has our collection grown 

 from its first single specimen brought to a meeting of 

 the old Sioux City Association back in the year of its 

 beginning, 1885, until now, when we have a large lot of 

 specimens, thousands in number. They came to us sin- 

 gly and in small numbers as well as in larger collec- 

 tions, given by friends who had gathered them together 

 in their travels in many lands. Our thanks are especial- 

 ly due for generous gifts of specimens from Mrs. Florence 

 Charles Martin of Minneapolis, Mrs. Caroline Gronin- 

 ger Gore, Mrs. T. J. Stone, Mrs. Mary Booge and Mrs. 

 J. M. Davis, all of whom have given us valuable collec- 

 tions of fine material. To the many other friends from 

 whom our specimens have come our thanks are heartily 

 given. In trying to tell you something of our collec- 

 tion I shall avoid, as far as possible, the long and hard 

 names given to natural history specimens by scientists, 

 describing some of them so that all can understand what 

 they are and where they came from. Many individuals 

 in collecting, only look for one kind of specimens, such 

 as old coins, shells or Indian relics, while our collection 

 covers many different branches of natural science. 



