the Academy sent a taxidermist along with Chouteau on his sojourn 
up the Missouri. The men returned to St. — with a profusion of 
fish, bird, reptile, and mammal specimens 
In addition to Chouteau’s contributions, the Academy accumulated 
the skeleton of a European cave bear and a rare fossil ox skull dredged 
from the bottom of Chouteau’s Pond in St. Louis before the little lake 
was drained and filled. The Academy also acquired the rocks and ore 
samples Friedreich Wislizenus gathered in Mexico in the 1840s, fossils 
collected by Albert Koch in Missouri and Arkansas, and important type- 
specimens found by Governor K. Warren.?5 Other Academy holdings 
included a large collection of marine and fresh water shells; plant 
specimens gathered by St. Louis Bishop Joseph Rosati; bird skins from 
California, Texas, and New Mexico; a collection of several hundred 
mounted birds obtained from the Smithsonian Institution and the 
Academy of Sciences of Philadelphia; and an ‘‘interesting collection 
of East Indian figures’’ donated by a corresponding member living in 
Calcutta, India.26 
The Academy kept its collections in the O’Fallon Dispensary 
building at the St. Louis Medical College, where many of the specimens 
were displayed in locked cases. Respectable citizens could visit the small 
museum free of charge on Tuesdays and Fridays from one o’clock un- 
til sunset.?7 
St. Louis Medical College 
This museum met an unhappy end in 1869 when a fire in the 
Dispensary building destroyed the collections. Members of the Academy 
22 
