WARD’S natural science bulletin 
7 
GEOLOGY. 
Under this heading we invite attention in the 
first place to our extensive series of ROCKS — 
IGNEOUS, METAMORPHIC, and SEDIMEN- 
TARY — in which all the noted foreign localities, 
are represented, from the Giant’s Causeway to 
the Islands of New Zealand, and from Norway 
to Southern Africa, as well as other collecting 
grounds nearer home. These are in specimens 
of a uniform size, with fresh surfaces and well 
marked characters. For those who are not spec- 
ialists. and whom this wealth of material would 
puzzle to select from, we have carefully pre- 
pared several general 
COLLECTIONS OF TYPICAL ROCKS. 
Each specimen is mounted on a walnut block 
to which a nicely printed label is attached. 
Briefly these collections are : 
The UNION SCHOOL COLLECTION of 50 
specimens, price $20. 
The ACADEMY COLLECTION of 100 speci- 
mens, price $45. 
The COLLEGE COLLECTION of 275 speci- 
mens (many of large size,) price $200. 
These collections are arranged according to 
mineral composition. We have also two in strat- 
igraphical order: 
A GENERAL STRATIGRAPHICAL COL- 
LECTION of 100 specimens from typical Euro- 
pean and American localities, including Chart of 
Geological time, price $50. 
ROCKS OF THE NEW YORK SYSTEM, 
110 specimens. On the bottom of each block is a 
small Geological diagram with a red line under 
the particular stratum to which that individual 
specimen belongs — thus giving at a glance its po- 
sition in the Geological Series. Accompanied 
with Chart of Geological Time and Descriptive 
Catalogue, $80. 
The respective prices affixed include all labels 
and mountings , and printed catalogues. 
Besides these trimmed rocks for collections we 
have a varied assortment of material illustrating 
special points in PHENOMENAL GEOLOGY 
(faults, veins, etc.,) and as adjuncts in teaching. 
GEOLOGICAL MODELS in wood, showing 
graphically the effects of erosion, faults, out- 
crops, etc. Also, RELIEF MAPS of interesting 
regions, (Vesuvius, Etna, Mont Blanc, Colorada 
Canon and others,) and GEOLOGICAL CHARTS 
and LANDSCAPES, for information concerning 
which consult our Catalogue of Geology and Lith- 
ology. Price, 20 cents. 
STUDENTS’ COLLECTIONS OF ROCKS. 
We have recently prepared two collections of 
rocks containing 60 specimens each. They are 
composed of neat typical rocks, but small in size. 
One collection is arranged lithologically and 
the other stratigraphically. The former contains 
all varieties of rocks usually met with by the 
student, while the latter very evenly represents 
all Geological time, from the Archgen to the pres- 
ent. Both collections represent European as well 
as American localities. We offer these collec- 
tions, put up in nicely finished hard wood cases, 
furnished with lock and key, the former for $10. 
The latter (stratigraphical), with large chart of 
Geological Time, for $12. 
The same collections without cases, simply 
numbered to correspond with printed list, will be 
furnished for $6 and $7 respectively. 
We can also furnish still smaller and cheaper 
specimens if desired. 
THE ORIGIN OF SALT. 
From the Cornhill Magazine. 
This world was once a haze of fluid light, as 
the poets and the men of science agree in inform- 
ing us. As soon as it began to cool down a lit- 
tle, the heavier materials sank toward the cen- 
ter, while the lighter, now represented by the 
ocean and the atmosphere, floated in a gaseous 
condition on the outside. But the great envelope 
of vapor thus produced did not consist merely of 
the constituents of the air and water; many other 
gases and vapors mingled with them, as they still 
do to a far less extent in our existing atmos- 
phere. By and by, as the cooling and condens- 
ing process continued, the water settled down 
from the condition of steam into one of a liquid 
at a dull red heat. As it condensed it carried 
down with it a great many other substances, held 
in solution, whose component elements had pre- 
viously existed in the primitive gaseous atmos- 
phere. Thus the early ocean which covered the 
whole earth was in all probability not only very 
salt, but also very thick with other mineral mat- 
ters close up to the point of saturation. It was 
full of lime and raw flints and sulphates and 
many other miscellaneous bodies. Moreover, it 
was not only just as salt as at the present day, 
but even a great deal salter. For from that time 
to this evaporation has been constantly going on 
in certain shallow, isolated areas, laying down 
great beds of gypsum and then of salt, which still 
remain in the solid condition, while the water has 
happened in a slightly different way with the 
lime and flint which have been separated from 
the water chiefly by living animals, and after- 
wards deposited on the bottom of the ocean in 
immense layers, as limestone, chalk, sandstone 
and clay. Thus it turns out that in the end all 
our sources of salt supply are alike ultimately 
derived from the briny ocean. Whether we 
dig it out as solid rock salt from the open quar- 
ries of the Punjab, or pumped up from brine 
wells sunk into the triassic rocks of Cheshire, or 
evaporate it direct in the salt pans of England 
and the shallow salines of the Mediterranean 
shore, it is still at bottom essentially sea salt. 
However distant the connection may seem, our 
salt is always in the last resort obtained from the 
material held in solution in some ancient or 
modern sea. Even the saline springs of Canada 
and the northern states of America, wheYe the 
wapita love to congregate, and the noble hunter 
lurks in the thicket to murder them unperceived, 
derive their saltness, as an -able Canadian geolo- 
gist has shown, from the thinly scattered salts 
still retained among the sediments of that very 
archaic sea whose precipitates form the earliest 
known life-bearing rocks. To the Homeric Greek, 
as to Mr. Dick Swiveller, the ocean was always 
the briny; to' modern science, on the other hand, 
(which neither of those worthies would probably 
have appreciated at its own valuation,) the briny 
is always the oceanic. The fossil food which 
we find to-day on all our dinner tables date back 
its origin primarily to the first seas that ever 
covered the surface of our planet, and secondari- 
ly to the great rock deposits of the dried up tri- 
assic inland sea. And yet even our men of science 
habitually described that ancient mineral as com- 
mon salt. 
ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY. 
§ In this department we have an exten- 
sive and varied assortment of material, 
comprising articles of dress, tools, weap- 
ons, utensils, etc., of historic and prehis- 
toric races. 
STONE IMPLEMENTS, from Den- 
mark, France, Switzerland, Great Britain, 
Egypt, New Zealand, New Guinea, and 
the United States. 
POTTERY, from Denmark, Peru, Mis- 
souri and New Mexico. 
BRONZES, from France and Denmark. 
IDOLS, SPEARS, BOOMERANGS, etc., 
from India, Australia and the Pacific Islands. 
MUMMIES, CLOTHS, etc, from Peruvian 
graves and the Mummy Pits of Egypt. 
CASTS OF FOSSILS. 
In addition to the actual fossils from the dif- 
ferent geological periods, we still continue to 
furnish “Ward’s Oasts of Celebrated Fos- 
sils.” These are copies — exact facsimiles in form 
and color — of both celebrated and typical fossil 
forms, from the British Museum, Jardin des 
Plantes, Vienna Museum, St. Petersburgli Muse- 
um, and other noted cabinets of Europe and 
America. 
The call for these casts has been large, and 
they have been indorsed in an unmistakable 
manner by our highest institutions of science, _ as 
shown by orders from over fifty of them, varying 
from $1,000 to $3,000, and many more for smaller 
amounts. Considerable numbers have been sent 
to the museums of England, Austria, Bavaria, 
South America, India, New Zealand, and 
Australia. 
W e have made up three considerable suites or 
series of these casts,- including in them severally 
those forms which have proved to be of more 
particular attractiveness and interest for our 
lesser and our larger institutions. In this way 
three distinct Geological Cabinets have been 
compiled, but of different magnitude and scope. 
These comprise the 
COLLEGE SERIES 
selected so as to thoroughly represent all the Geo- 
logical formations and Zoological subdivisions. 
Many of the forms are fossils of general celeb- 
rity, and are referred to in every text book on the 
subject. Among them are the Neanderthal 
Skull, Guadaloupe Man, Megatherium, Glyptodon, 
Linotherium, Diprotodon, Dodo,Aepiornis, Ichthyo- 
saurus, Labyrinthodon, Pterodactyl, Holopty- 
chius, Cephalaspis, &c., &c. In all, 212 genera, 
and 290 species. We sell this entire collection, 
packed, for $1,000. 
ACADEMY SERIES. 
While many of the large striking forms found 
in the college series are absent from this, it covers 
the same ground, and will be found to serve the 
teacher for class illustration excellently well. 
This series contains 129 genera and 159 species. 
Delivered at depot in Rochester, for $300. 
To make the collection more imposing and at- 
tractive, we have an addition to it in the way of 
a SUPPLEMENT, containing three noted large 
forms — Glyptodon, Diprotodon and Mastodon — 
which will be added to the series for a further 
sum of $200. 
SCHOOL SERIES. 
A carefully chosen series, giving a well-pro- 
portioned exhibit of all the classes, is adapted 
especially for union schools, and offered at a 
price within their reach. There are in all sev- 
enty-six specimens, which will be delivered at 
railroad, for $175. Illustrated descriptive cata- 
logue, 20c. 
$300 COLLECTION OF CASTS AND 
ORIGINAL FOSSILS. 
We have recently prepared a series covering 
the whole field of Palaeontology, in which the 
unique and rarer forms are represented by casts, 
and the commoner forms by original fossils. Of 
the 485 specimens (260 species) in this collection, 
149 (145 species) are casts, and 336 (117 species) 
originals. There is a great gain to any institu- 
tion purchasing this collection, in addition to the 
fact that it covers the whole field very evenly, 
as we have here followed the rule adopted in 
the preparation of all our series, and give much 
more for the money than could be obtained if 
bought as individual specimens. 
W e offer the same supplement to this collection 
as prepared for the Academy Series of Casts. 
ARCHAE0PTERY. 
Having obtained a mould of this wonderful 
fossil, we are now prepared to furnish perfect 
casts of the same, colored like the original, and 
scarcely distinguishable from it, for $10. This 
price includes case and packing. 
