II. THE CONTENTS OF THE MUSUEM

The original collection made by Dr. Woodward, is contained in five walnut-tree cabinets, of which the two marked A and B were the only ones bequeathed to the University, the rest having been purchased from the executors.

The contents of these cabinets formed the nucleus around which all the more modern additions have collected, and our survey of “the museum as it is”, must accordingly commence with an allusion to a few of the more remarkable and interesting specimens found among them.

As they are at present arranged, the first and part of the second of the cabinets are devoted to mineralogy, and the drawers contain a multifarious collection of sands and stones, specimens of polished marble, and odd shaped stalactites, the native ores of the various metals, and a few minerals of considerable value. On the whole, however, this must be looked upon as the least interesting of Dr. Woodward's collections, and omitting more particular description, we would rather direct attention to two drawers in cabinet B, filled with echini, fishes' teeth and palatal bones, a few shells, and some ingenious and very well executed metallic casts of the interior of shells. With regard to the latter, it is deserving of notice, that after an interval of more than a century, during which such internal casts have been quite neglected by Conchologists, Professor Agassiz has lately taken up the subject and succeeded, after overcoming some very considerable difficulties, in executing a set of models likely to be extremely useful in determining fossil species of shells.