Scientific Reviews. 27) 
sor Jameson,. if no other meritorious quality could be detected in 
his public life, (with which we have at present no concern, except 
in reference to his office as Keeper of the Museum,) deserves the 
highest esteem and gratitude from his countrymen, for the unre- 
mitting exertions which he has made towards the formation of the 
Museum of Natural History in this University. He has strained 
every effort, and had recourse to almost every device, (as Dr. Brews- 
ter could relate,) in the furtherance of this great object of his life. 
And supported by a liberal Government, and assisted by a host of 
scientific friends, not to mention the extent in which he has been 
the passive organ through whom Scotchmen have evinced their 
amor patric, his endeavours have been crowned with a success 
which has seldom been equalled in the labours of a single indivi- 
dual. There is in the University of Edinburgh, a collection which 
is the city’s pride and the country’s boast. 
It may thus more easily be conceived, how, by slow degrees, the 
growing pride of the successful collector, fostered by the uncon- 
trolled sway, which, for obvious reasons, he was permitted to 
maintain, has ripened into an unsufferable insolence, which must 
certainly find destruction in its overgrowth. And additional autho- 
rity has been gained by the Professor, by depositing within the 
Museum his own private collection, principally composed, as we 
believe, of minerals, to which his initial will be feund attached. 
It is but a small portion, however, of the great bulk of the Mu- 
seum over which the Professor can have any sort of personal claim. 
Dufresne’s valuable collection of birds, purchased by the Uni- 
versity with money borrowed on the expectancy of General 
Reid’s munificent bequest, the stuffed specimens of quadru- 
peds, the shells, the insects, which may never again see the 
light of day, “lest the beauty of their colours be destroyed,” the 
collection of British birds, &c. belong undoubtedly to the public ; 
and, notwithstanding the Professor’s declaration, we have reason to 
believe that the skeletons of animals, which are arranged in an 
apartment separate from the rooms of public exhibition, are not his 
“ private property,’ but equally a parcel of the public wealth. 
However, be this as it may turn out,—and the question will be 
sifted,—do not the public permit these specimens to be deposited 
in their rooms, on the understanding that they are for public use ? 
and is a servant of the public to be spurned when he respectfully 
requests permission to see his master’s goods ? * 
After the high terms in which we have spoken of this Museum, 
it will naturally occur to our readers to inquire, “ Why a name so 
* Government admits all specimens directed to Professor Jameson, or to the 
College Museum, to be imported exempt from duty, expressly for the public 
good ; and whatever is so obtained, becomes the absolute property of the public 
by the purchase which is thus made out of the revenue of the customs. Thus, 
though the specimens be sent home by the friends of the Professor, and directed 
particularly to him, he relinquishes his right to them immediately on taking ad- 
vantage of this regulation. 
