THE WEST COURT. 
The large objects in the West Court form a part of the Nat- 
ural History collections. 
The arrangement is intended to typify to some extent the be- 
ginnings and development of vegetable and animal life upon our 
planet. 
The series begins near the west door with the terra cotta pa- 
vilion, composed entirely of earth, and containing a vase of the 
same material in which low forms of vegetation. Lichens and 
Mosses, are growing. 
Next to it, emblematic of forest growth, stands a section of 
an immense California Redwood Tree, 878 years old, and nearly 
fifteen feet in diameter, which was 6g inches in thickness when Co- 
lumbus discovered America, 1492. Upon either side of it stand 
two sections, one of Western Spruce, seven feet in diameter, and 
the other of Oak which illustrates chronologically, the compara- 
tive rapidity of ring growth in trees; while upon the four corners 
of the dais are installed living specimens of four principal forms 
of tree life. 
Following in order are the skeleton of the Mastodon, from 
America, and the reproduction of the huge Mammoth, sixteen feet 
high, found in Siberia, and the skeleton of a whale ; these exem- 
plify land and marine animal life. 
Two large rocks, grooved and polished by glacial action and 
belonging to the Geological Collection will be found under the 
skeleton of the whale. 
