82 The Origin and Development of Museums. [February, 
“in the museum in Koenigsberg, Prussia, and belongs to a whale. 
Even now this custom is not entirely obsolete. 
It seems certain that prominent naturalists, such as Aristotle 
and Apuleius, must have had collections, though there is no di- 
rect testimony to that effect given in any of their works still ex- 
tant. The order of Alexander the Great for hunters, trappers, 
and fishermen to bring all kinds of natural objects to Aristotle, 
is well known ; Theophrast and Apuleius are also known to have 
studied and dissected many different kinds of animals, chiefly 
fishes. Apuleius is the first naturalist known to have found it 
profitable and necessary to make voyages for the purpose of study- 
ing foreign animals, and collecting palzontological objects in the 
Getulic Alps, but unfortunately all his works on zodlogy are 
lost. The Emperor Augustus is considered the first prince pos- 
sessing collections of a scientific nature. ; 
I presume that the certain knowledge of the collections of the 
great naturalists above quoted was lost, as the collections them- 
selves were quickly destroyed, for lack of means for sufficient 
preservation. The truth of this explanation is made more appar- 
ent since the successive discovery of more convenient and easier 
means of preservation of objects has made these collections more 
lasting and permanent through later generations. In a really 
interesting and obvious way, every new discovery, every improve- 
ment in the manner of preservation, has given a newer and 
stronger impulse to the enlargement of the collections, to the 
perfection of science. 
Some methods of preserving objects were of course known to 
the ancients, but these methods were the same as those used for 
the preservation of food or of corpses, and generally not at all 
adapted or sufficient to preserve objects in a manner to make 
them fit for scientific purposes. The principal of these methods 
consisted in the exclusion or the prevention of the obnoxious 
action of oxygen. So the objects were preserved or dried, 
pickled with salt or spices, or entirely covered with salt water, 
honey, or wax. 
The sow which was said to have borne thirty young pigs to 
Æneas was pickled by the priests, and was still to be seen at 
Lavinium in Varro’s time, some ten centuries later. Large Af- 
rican animals pickled with salt, two hippocentauri and a large 
monkey, sent to Rome, were seen many years later by Pliny. 
Other large animals preserved in the same way were sent to the 
emperors in Constantinople, and even much later the hippopota- 
mus described by Cohunna arrived, pickled with salt. 
