NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMS 133 



Zoology. 1000 specimens: considerable invertebrate material; 

 South American mammals and birds; native fauna, and many 

 tjpical forms of vertebrates in general. 



Botany. The collection is for teaching rather than for illus- 

 trative purposes and consists largely of algae and fungi. 



Ethnology. Considerable material not on exhibition, and not 

 fully classified. 



The museum includes the Ward collections in mineralogy, 

 lithology, paleontology and phenomenal geology. These are the 

 original collections of Prof. Henry A. Ward, and were accumu- 

 lated by him through many years of labor and extensive travel 

 in execution of a plan to create a complete museum of geology 

 for use in teaching. The material thus successfully gathered 

 was purchased in 1862 for the university, through the generosity 

 of the citizens of Rochester, for the low price of |20,000. At 

 that time it was the largest and choicest geologic collection in 

 America, including about 40,000 specimens, handsomely 

 mounted and labeled, and probably remains today unsurpassed 

 in proportion and quality by any similar collection. 



This museum is open to the public, and offers to the people 

 and the schools of western New York an exceptional oppor- 

 tunity for the study of the earth's structure and history. 



Vassar college imiseum, Poughkeepsie. William B. Dwight, 

 curator, in charge of museum. 



Paleontology. 8150 specimens consisting of a general collec- 

 tion of 5000 specimens, including the skeleton of a mastodon, 

 ■9 feet high and 21 feet long over all, a skeleton of a moa; 

 lecture room collection always accessible for study to students 

 of the geologic classes; the Hall collection no. 3, with some 

 subsequent additions, about 3000 specimens. In the general 

 collection, the Carboniferous and the strata above it are repre- 

 sented the more fully, chiefly by European specimens. In the 

 lecture room collection the representation is fairly equal for the 

 various strata in that part of it covered by the original Hall 

 collection. Among the recent additions are about 100 fine 

 «ections of American foissil Bryozoa, accompanied by a speci- 

 men of each species prepared by E. O. Ulrich and a set of about 

 50 species of fossil ostracoid Entomostraca. 



