56 
natural history. (Minerals.) 
[north 
NORTH GALLERY. 
The Rooms on the North side of the North Wing are appropriated to 
the Collections of Minerals and Fossils. 
MINERALS. 
[The notices relating to the Fossils commence at p. 83.] 
In accordance with the plan laid down for their distribution, the Table 
Cases containing the General Collection of Minerals form two rows, 
or series, extending through four rooms or compartments of the gal¬ 
lery, as follows : — 
In Room I.*, being the N. E. corner room, the first series of Table 
Cases begins and the second terminates ; it contains Cases 1 to 6 and 
55 to 60, with six supplemental Cases. Room II. contains the Cases 
7 to 13 and 48 to 54. Room III. the Cases 14 to 23 and 38 to 47, with 
two supplemental Cases; and in Room IV. are placed the Cases 24 
to 30 and 31 to 37, the arrangement of which is nearly completed. 
The system adopted for the arrangement of the Minerals, with occa¬ 
sional deviations, is that of Berzelius, founded upon the electro¬ 
chemical theory and the doctrine of definite proportions, as developed 
by him in several memoirs read before the Royal Academy of Sciences 
of Stockholm. The detail of this arrangement cannot here be entered 
into : it is, however, partly supplied by the running titles at the out¬ 
sides of the Table Cases, and by the labels within themf. 
The first two Cases, and part of the third, contain the electro-positive 
native metals: iron, copper, bismuth, lead, silver, mercury, palladium, 
platinum, osmium and gold. 
Cases 1 and 1*. Native iron of undoubtedly terrestrial origin is of 
very rare occurrence, almost all the insulated masses of this metal hitherto 
found having proved to be meteoric , and of these the following specimens 
are deposited, nearly in the order of their discovery, or of the first men¬ 
tion made of them:—A portion of the celebrated mass of iron of the 
descent of which, at Agram, in Croatia, on the 26th of May, 1751, 
detailed official accounts were drawn up by the authorities of that place, 
who presented it to the Roman Emperor, Francis I., and to the 
* It may here be observed that among the objects separately placed in Room I. 
are—near the window opposite to ^he Table Case containing the native silver, a 
branched variety of that metal from Kongsberg, presented by H. Heuland, Esq.;— 
in the centre window of the east side, a large portion of the trunk of a coniferous 
tree converted into semi-opal, presented by Lady Chantrey;—in the window, 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; two busts carved in jet-like bituminous brown 
coal, the one of Henry VIII., the other of his daughter the Lady Mary. The 
sculptured tortoise near the centre of this room, placed on a round table inlaid 
with various antique marbles and other mineral substances, is wrought out of 
nephrite or jade : it was found on the banks of the Jumna, near the city of 
Allahabad, in Hindostan, brought to England by Lieutenant-General Kyd, and 
presented to the Museum by Thomas Wilkinson, Esq. 
f An electro-chemical arrangement, in accordance with the principles laid down 
by the great Swedish chemist himself not long before his death, in a memoir on 
this subject, has been given by Prof. Rammelsberg, in his “ J.J. Berzelius* Neues 
Mineral System, Nurnberg, 1847,” and will, if circumstances allow it, be hereafter 
adopted for the collection contained in the Table Cases; the present arrangement 
remaining nearly as we find it in the 4th ed. of Berzelius’ work on the Use of the 
B low'pipe, published in 1824. 
