45 
NORTH GALLERY.] NATURAL HISTORY. 
NORTH GALLERY. 
The Rooms on the North side of the North Wing are appropriated to 
the Oryctognostic or Mineralogical Collection, and to that of Palae¬ 
ontology (Secondary Fossils or Organic Remains). The greater part 
of these Collections was heretofore arranged in the East Wing, and 
considerable additions have since been made to them. 
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 three 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 xVIinerals, with occa¬ 
sional slight deviations, is that of Berzelius, founded upon the electro¬ 
chemical theory and the doctrine of definite proportions, as developed 
by him in a memoir 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 glass Cases, and by the labels within them. 
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. 
Case 1. Native iron of undoubtedly terrestrial origin very rarely oc¬ 
curs, most of the insulated masses of this metal hitherto found having 
proved to be meteoric , and of these the following specimens are depo¬ 
sited :— native iron from Gross- Kamsdorf in Saxony * ;—two small 
polished pieces of the mass found in Southern Africa, which weighed 
about 250 pounds, and is now in the cabinet of Haarlem :—fragment 
of the iron from the Senegal;—specimens of the native iron from 
Otumpa, in the Gran Chaco Gualamba, in South America, described 
by Don Rubin de Celis, who estimated the weight of the mass to be 
about 300 quintals, or 15 tonsf;—a large piece detached from the 
celebrated mass of Siberian native iron, which was discovered by Pallas 
on the summit of a mountain between Abakansk and Belskoi Ostrog, 
on the banks of the Jenisey, where it was considered by the Tartars 
as a sacred relic : the mass originally weighed about 1680 pounds. 
Presented by the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg.—A 
mass of iron from Atacama, resembling that of Siberia, and, like it, 
containing much of an olivine-like substance within its cells : presented 
by Sir Woodbine Parish. — A portion detached from the large mass of 
the iron of Ellenbogen, in Bohemia, where it w 7 as known by the popular 
name of the enchanted Burgrave, (der verwiinschte Burggraf);—part 
* The origin of this is problematical, as is that of the iron from Aix-la-Chapelle 
and from the Collina di Brianza. 
j The large mass of iron placed against the wall under the window, was sen 
from Buenos Ayres, in 1826, by Mr. "(since Sir Woodbine) Parish; it is suppose 
to be part of that of Otumpa, described by Rubin de Celis in the Philos. Trans, fo 
1788 ; its weight 1400 pounds. Presented by Sir Humphrey Davy and Sir Wood 
bine Parish. 
