Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1870 [PAGE 37]

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ores, and geological specimens, and be taught how to analyze them. A library of standard works on general and analytical chemistry will soon be purchased; and English, French, and German periodicals will furnish information of the most recent views and discoveries in this department of science. BOTANY AND HORTICULTURE.—Papier mache flowers, fruits, etc., have been procured from the celebrated Dr. Auzoux, of Paris. Among them are flowers of several classes which can be easily dissected, and which are so greatly enlarged as to exhibit to the eye the minute organs almost invisible in natural flowers. Also, fruits and grain magnified to show the organs, structure and parts, the coatings, starch, pulp, germs and various tissues. Nothing has ever exceeded the beauty and fidelity of these artificial fruits a.nd flowers. Besides these, the University possesses extensive herbariums, collections of wood, seeds, grains, etc.; also large nurseries of forest and fruit trees, orchards, gardens, small fruit plantations and ornamental grounds—a propagating house and a large green-house just added. A botanical garden and an extensive aboretum are in preparation. The department has also two large and powerful microscopes.

ZOOLOGY, GEOLOGY, ETC.—Cabinets of insects, birds, reptiles, mammals,

shells, skeletons, fossils, minerals, charts and plates are already collected and are rapidly increasing. A large double magic lantern, such as are manufactured for the English government army schools, has been procured from London, with a large number of slides to illustrate geology, natural history, astronomy, history, etc. AGRICULTURE.—Besides the foregoing, nearly all of which serves to illustrate the sciences related to agriculture, the University farms, gardens, etc., embrace over a thousand acres of fine improved farming lands, on which large model barns are being erected, and for which several breeds of fine stock are to be purchased. To illustrate veterinary science, a veterinary stable is to be erected, and papier mache models, from Dr. Auzoux, of the horse's mouth and teeth, show the successive changes of age. A dissected foot and ankle, from the same manufactor, beautifully illustrates the complicated structure of this part of the horse.

PRACTICAL MECHANICS AND MECHANICAL ENGINEERING.—A mechanical

shop, occupying a two-story building, is now established on the grounds of the University. In the upper story is the carpenter's shop. This shop is supplied with a circular saw, jig-saw, morticing machine, and a set of work benches and vises for students, with all the necessary carpenter's and cabinet maker's tools. The lower story is devoted to the machine-shop, which is furnished with a boiler and steam engine of eight-horse power; a machinist's "engine-lathe," and two hand-lathes, fitted up with chucks, drills, etc.; a wood-turning lathe; a pattern-maker's bench, with its complement of tools; a blacksmith shop; molding-sand, crucibles, etc., for making brass and other castings; several iron vises, and sundry other tools valuable in the machine shop. The engine is of special design, being adapted to receive different sets of valve-gears, for the purpose of illustrating to the classes, in a working model, the different varieties of the steam engine. In the mechanical shop,