186 
NATURAL HISTORY 
[north 
(Brongniart’s Mantellia nidiformis ,) from the oolite of 
Portland. Various other vegetable remains, especially of 
Dicotyledonous plants, such as those from the fresh water 
formation of Oeningen, &c., will hereafter be arranged in 
Table Cases to be made for their reception. 
On the lower shelves of the Cases C, D, and E, is placed 
a very extensive series of cut and polished specimens of 
fossil wood, most of them from the red sandstone forma¬ 
tion of Chemnitz in Saxony,%nd New Paka in Bohemia, 
and many of them described and figured in Cotta’s work: 
Die Dendrolithen , Dresd . 1832. The genera Tubicaulis , 
Psaronius (Staar-stein) and Porosus , no doubt belong 
to the Filices; many of the remainder are referable to 
die Palms, and a still greater portion of them to the Coni- 
ferae ; in the vicinity of which natural orders they are 
respectively placed in the Wall Cases. 
The two Cases placed against the piers, between the 
windows of the E. wall of the room, contain a suite of 
varieties of Wood opal from Van Diemen’s Land, presented 
* Mrs. Howley, the lady of his Grace the Archbishop of 
Canterbury. 
Among the objects separately placed in Room I. are- 
near the window opposite to the Table Case containing 
die native silver, a branched variety of that metal from 
Kongsberg, presented by H. Heuland, Esq.;—in the win¬ 
dow, near the Table Cases containing the Sulphates, a 
very large mass of Websterite, from Newhaven, Sussex, 
presented by Dr, Mantell;—a large specimen of the 
brown coal of Iceland, called Surturbrand, presented by 
Sir Joseph Banks ; —two busts carved in jet-like bitu¬ 
minous brown coal, the one of Henry VIII., the other 
of his daughter the Lady Mary. 
The Wall Cases in Room II. contain osseous remains (both 
original and in plaster casts) of the orders Edentata and 
Pachydermata. To the former of these the Megatherium 
(M. Cuverii ) is generally referred, of which the casts here de¬ 
posited, though constituting only a small portion of the whole 
skeleton, are sufficient to convey an idea of the consider¬ 
able dimensions of this animal.—Among the specimens of 
the last mentioned, natural order, may be specified the re¬ 
mains of two species of that extraordinary genus, the Dei - 
rwtherium, lately discovered in Bavaria, some of the teeth 
of which were known to Cuvier, who supposed them to 
