FLOOll.] 
FOSSILS. 
25 
GALLERY OF MINERALS AND FOSSILS, 
CALLED THE 
"NOETH GAL LE E Y. ,J 
Situated in the upper story of the Building, the North Gal- 
lery is entered either from the lobby at the north end of the 
Gallery of Antiquities, or from the lobby at the corresponding 
end of the Bird Gallery. The rooms into which the North 
Gallery is divided are numbered I. to VI., and the numbers 
will be found over the doorways. The floor of the Gallery is 
occupied by Table Cases, which, in the Rooms I. to IV., contain 
the collection of Minerals ; and, in Rooms V. and VI., are 
devoted to the fossil remains of Invertebrate Animals. The 
Wall Cases throughout the Gallery are occupied by — 
FOSSILS. 
The Fossil remains are arranged partly in Zoological order and partly 
in Geological sequence ; thus, the species of the natural families, such, 
for example, as the Ammonitida (shells allied to the Pearly Nautilus), 
and TerebratulidcB (Lamp-shells), are grouped together : but each family 
commences with the most recent examples of the group and termi- 
nates with those of the older rocks. The series of remains of Verte- 
brata, or animals with a back-bone, commences with the Fishes in 
Room II., is continued, on the walls facing the windows, to the last 
Room (No. VI.), and there returns in the Wall Cases near the win- 
dows, to terminate in Room III. 
Some of the smaller objects belonging to this series will be found in 
the Table Cases under the windows. In the Lobby, between the Bird 
Gallery and the Gallery of Minerals and Fossils, is a restored model 
of the shell of an extinct Fossil Tortoise, of gigantic size, from the 
Siwalik Hills, in India. Portions of the shell and of other parts of 
the skeleton of several different individuals of this species of Tortoise 
(Colossochelys atlas), are deposited in Case 2 of lioom III., and it is 
of casts from some of these portions that the restored model is, in a 
great measure, composed. 
