NATURAL HISTORY. 
71 
GALLERY. ] 
Chloride of mercury, or horn-quicksilver, with native mercury from 
Moschel-Landsberg, Almaden, &c. 
Case 60 contains a small collection of organico-chemical, or such 
mineralized substances as are composed after the manner of organic 
bodies, from which they derive their origin. They are divided into salts, 
resins, bitumen, and coal. To the salts belong—the mellate of alumina, 
also called mellite or honey-stone, found in the beds of brown coal at 
Artern in Thuringia; and the oxalate of iron , formerly known by the name 
of resinous iron, but to which that of humboldtite is now generally 
given_To the resins are referred—the amber, of the varieties of 
which a considerable suite is deposited, many of them enclosing insects, 
&c. ; to wdrich, for the sake of comparison, are added, specimens of re¬ 
cent copal, likewise containing insects fossil copal or Highgate resin; 
—retinite or retinasphalt, found at Bovey; together with some other re¬ 
lated resinous substances;—the idrialite, to which the bituminous cin¬ 
nabar or brand-ertz is partly referable. To the bitumina belong the 
varieties of mineral pitch of all degrees of consistence, from the fluid 
naphtha and mineral oil or petroleum, to the solid and hard asphalt and 
jet or pitch coal j — the elaterite or elastic bitumen of Derbyshire, (a suite 
of specimens exhibiting all degrees of solidity, from that of honey to 
that of a compact ligneous substance). With these is also placed the 
dapeche, an inflammable fossil substance found by Humboldt in South 
America, having several properties of the common caoutchouc or Indian 
rubber;—the hatchettine, a bituminous substance from Merthyr Tydvil in 
South Wales; the scheererite; the hartite, and the ixolyte of Haidinger, 
&c. — Coal: black coal, and brown coal —of these a few specimens only 
are deposited, their different varieties being rather objects for a geolo¬ 
gical collection. 
The collections of Organic Remains begin, in Room I. w r ith that of 
the Fossil Vegetables, at present deposited chiefly in the Wall Cases of 
the S. and W. sides of the room. A systematic botanical arrangement 
has been adopted, so far as the limited space and the as yet doubtful 
nature of many of those fossil remains admitted of it. 
Case 1 is set apart for the small number of fossils apparently of 
the class of submerged ALGiE, such as Fucoides Confervites, &c. In 
the same Case are provisionally placed those impressions on coal slate, 
of plants with verticillated leaves, known by the generic names of Astero - 
phyllites, Annularia, &c., and supposed by some to be referable to the 
Naiades ; as also a few that appear to bear affinity to the Marsilace^:, 
such as Pilularites, Solenites, &c. ; together with some other vegetable 
remains, the nature of which is not yet determined. 
The upper division of Case 2 is occupied by the Equisetace^e, 
most of which may be united under the generic name of Calamites, the 
absence of the sheaths by which the latter are said to be distinguishable 
from real Equiseta , being a character not to be depended upon. The 
species of Calamites, almost all from the rocks of the most ancient coal 
formation, are far from being satisfactorily determined, their internal 
structure being entirely unknown. The species of Calamitea of Cotta, 
(Case E.,) which exhibit a peculiar organic structure, can scarcely be 
