Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1882 [PAGE 44]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

38

Collections of woods, of fruits, dry and alcoholic, of plaster casts, of microscopic preparations, of charts and drawings, make up, together with the green house and its specimens and the library, the facilities, for the study of Botany and Vegetable Physiology. A considerable collection of insects, especially of those inhabiting our own State, aids in the study of Entomology. Most prominent, however, in the equipments of the School is the

NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM.

The room for the Natural History collection is on the first floor of the west wing of the main building. Prom north to south it is seventy-six feet long; it is sixty feet wide and sixteen feet high. On the west side are six large windows, and on the south, three, which ordinarily afford abundant light. Covering the entire wall on the east, and the spaces between the windows on the south and west, are two stories of wall cases; they are separated by a gallery on the three sides of the room, which is reached by iron stairs at the northeast and northwest corners. These cases, with continuous shelving, are eight feet high, provided with glazed doors. There are also on each side of the room, opposite the spaces between the windows, five upright glazed cases, for the reception of such large specimens as could not be accommodated in the wall cases. The two extreme ones on either side are 10 feet 8 inches by 6 feet; and the three middle ones are 10 feet 8 inches by 3 feet 6 inches; all 8 feet high. Directly opposite the windows, so as not to ob?cure the light, and between the floor cases on each side of the room, are table cases, glazed at top, sides and ends, for the reception of shells, minerals, or any small specimens. All this work of wood and iron was done at the University shops, and chiefly by the students of the architectural and mechanical classes. A large case, 15 feet by 6 feet, and uniform with the rest, occupies the south end of the room, for the preservation of archaeological specimens, Indian relics, and whatever else may be deemed worthy or instructive, in teaching the progress of civilization. Arrangement of Contents.—On either side of the central space are arranged the large casts of Ward's collection of remarkable fossils, Directly in front, towards the south end, stands the gigantic Megatherium. Largely covering the north wall hang the slabs of the immense Saurian reptiles. The remainder of this remarkable collection of casts of fossils, numbering in all three hundred and twenty-six, are arranged in the lower wall cases at the south end of the room, and on the tops of the floor cases. This most valuable set of casts was presented to the University, when it had almost no cabinet, by Hon. Emory Cobb, President of the Board of Trustees. The entire east side wall cases are occupied by small mammals, birds and skeletons; the mammals beginning on the north below, and occupying about one-third the length of the room. The birds follow, arranged at present according the system of Dr. Cones.