Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1868 [PAGE 135]

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Committee as answering fully to the catalogues and accompanying descriptions, before final purchase. Secondly,—If the $3,000 demanded by Messrs. Bangs & Merwin, of New York, should be advanced, a bond should be taken for the refunding of the money in case the cabinet should be found not to answer the descriptions, with such securities as should be approved by the Trustees resident in Chicago. Under these instructions the Chairman of the Committee proceeded to make a contract with Messrs. Iglehart & Co., as follows. (Mr. B. here read the contract.—SEC.) To the contract an agreement was afterward added, that $2,000 of the amount proposed to be paid should not be payable until the first of next May. As it was found that the Regent of the University was to visit New York about the first of January, and could make the required examination in person, it was arranged with Messrs. Iglehart & Co., that the time for the examination should be extended till after that date. During the month of January the Regent, associating with himself Mr, Hall, of New York, and Prof. P. H. McChesney, of the University of Chicago, made an examination at least of enough of it to judge of its general character, and of the manner in which it had been packed and preserved. It will be understood by the Trustees that the value of collections in Natural History depends quite as much on the proper classification, labeling and preservation of the specimens, as on their original character; and it will be remembered that the proprietors of this collection, in the description which accompanied the catalogue, took pains to guarantee that the specimens had been carefully packed, and would be found uninjured by transportation, and in every respect in the best condition. Much to the disappointment of the Regent, the examination of the first box which was opened gave evidence of extreme carelessness in packing. The specimens, instead of being wrapped in cotton, as the description of Major Yail had represented, were found with a single wrapping of newspaper, and consequently many of them almost totally ruined in transportation, fine groups of crystals being literally crushed, and others seriously defaced and broken. Other boxes showed the same conditions, and after thus examining three or four boxes the Regent, and the scientific gentlemen who accompanied him, agreed in the opinion that it was useless to pursue the examination, since the cabinet, as found in the boxes, could in no sense be claimed or accepted as that called for by the contract with the proprietors. Notice to this effect was accordingly served on Messrs. Iglehart & Co., and that the contract with them was held to be void. The fortune of the negotiation leaves the University without other means for the illustration of any department of Natural History than what is to accrue from the expedition of Major Powell. The results of that expedition have not yet been reported to this Committee. The Committee have examined with interest the proposition of Dr. George Yasey, which was referred to them by the Trustees, and would earnestly recommend its acceptance, as by far the cheapest and best means within reach for acquiring a reliable collection of the flora of the State.