102 
PHARMACEUTICAL  NOTES  OP  TRAVEL. 
enclosing  an  open  court.  It  contains  lecture  rooms,  class  and 
reading  rooms,  museums,  and  a  library.  The  museum  of  natural 
history  contains  a  great  variety  of  natural  objects,  and  especi- 
ally a  fine  collection  of  birds ;  some  of  the  cabinets  can  be  only 
partially  exhibited  for  want  of  room.  The  Library,  which  con- 
tains about  100,000  volumes,  is  chiefly  arranged  on  either  side 
of  a  hall  near  200  feet  long,  containing,  among  other  objects  of 
interest,  a  beautiful'statue  of  the  Scottish  bard,  who,  though  no 
great  advocate  of  learning,  which  his  own  humble  education  and 
the  peculiar  bent  of  his  genius,  scarcely  prepared  him  to  appre- 
ciate, has  made  an  indelible  impress  upon  the  literature  of  his 
native  land,  and  has  given  to  Scotia,  even  in  far  off  America, 
the  synonym  of  the  land  of  Burns.  In  the  four  faculties  of 
theology,  law,  medicine,  and  art,  there  are  thirty-two  professors  ; 
of  these,  I  believe,  only  three  or  four,  who  are  connected  with 
medicine  and  its  collateral  branches,  lecture  in  the  summer. 
I  had  the  pleasure  of  listening  to  Dr.  Allman,  Professor  of 
Natural  History,  during  one  of  his  lectures  on  Physical  Geo- 
graphy. By  a  curious  coincidence,  he  was  describing  the  great 
plains  on  the  American  Continent,  and  gave  an  eloquent  des- 
cription of  prairie  scenery,  which  aroused  the  class  into  a  burst 
of  applause.  The  Professor  invested  his  whole  subject  with  a 
more  rhetorical  and  graphic  character  than  is  customary  on  such 
occasions,  and  being  dressed  in  a  gown  in  token  of  the  dignity 
of  his  office,  struck  me  as  in  strong  contrast  to  his  colleague, 
Dr.  Goodsir,  one  of  whose  summer  lectures  on  Comparative  Ana- 
tomy, I  heard ;  portions  of  the  skeletons  of  the  snake,  the  bird, 
and  the  reptile,  were  described  minutely ;  the  specimens  were, 
however,  too  small  to  be  readily  seen  by  the  class,  and  the  de- 
scription was  devoid  of  ornament  or  illustration.  The  museum 
of  this  department  is  very  extensive,  especially  the  exquisitely 
prepared  injections,  illustrating  minute  structures.  The  arrange- 
ment for  preserving  dead  bodies  for  dissecting  purposes,  appeared 
an  improvement  on  any  I  had  seen.  Large  wooden  boxes  are 
lined  with  thick  plates  of  unpolished  glass,  cemented  at  the 
corners  and  ground  on  the  edges  to  fit  the  top,  which  is 
similarly  lined  and  readily  moveable.  They  are  said  to  serve 
an  excellent  purpose.  The  dissecting  rooms  of  the  University 
are  ample,  commodious,  and  well  supplied  with  disinfecting  facili- 
ties. 
