IV INTRODUCTION. 



altogether impossible to obtain them. The series of extinct forms 

 can by this plan be made substantially complete, and the Cabinet 

 enriched by many specimens of great scientific value, and of great 

 attractiveness to the general visitor The author has obtained these casts 

 by the slow labor of years, seeking the copy of the best original 

 wherever it was to be found. Many of the rarer and most noted 

 specimens are from the British Museum, and the Garden of Plants 

 at Paris. Others are from Royal Museums in Berlin, Vienna, Copen- 

 hagen, St. Petersburg, Munich, Turin, Lyons, Darmstadt, Haarlem, 

 &c. In America he has received generous assistance in the privilege 

 of copying specimens from the Academy of Natural Sciences, at 

 Philadelphia, the Boston Society of Natural History, the Museum of 

 Comparative Zoology at Cambridge, and from Professor T. R. Pynchon 

 of Trinity College, Hartford, Conn. But by far the most important 

 additions from American sources are copies of the most striking 

 Ichnites — or fossil tracks — from the celebrated Ichnological Museum 

 of Amherst College ; and also a series of nearly 200 specimens 

 (mainly of Trilobites and Crinoids) chosen throughout the unrivalled 

 collection of American Palaeozoic fossils of Professor James Hall, 

 of Albany. The Ward Museum of the University of Rochester 

 has also supplied originals of some choice and rare fossils in the 

 Vertebrate division, and very many of the finest Invertebrate specimens, 

 particularly among the Cephalopod Molluscs, the Crinoids, and the 

 Sponges. 



These casts are now — for the first time — offered to the Educational 

 and Scientific Institutions of our Country, with the hope that their 

 advantages in the illustration of the Science of Geology will be 

 appreciated and be real. 



Those who examine the Catalogue here given, or glance at the 

 Summary at its close, will see that the Zoological Series is very 

 complete through nearly all its Classes and Orders, while the great 

 Periods of Geological time are each well represented. 



Especial attention is, however, called to a few of the more prom- 

 inent and interesting objects. 



Among Mammals, 



the Human skeleton from Guadaloupe is of peculiar and unique 

 interest, and never before copied. 



The series of Ruminants and Palchyderms from the Sewalik Hills 

 — ontliers of the Himmalaya — form a strange group, the history of 

 which has been most dilligently aud ably worked out by Messrs. Fal- 

 coner and Cautley in the publications of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 



