Repository: UIHistories Project: Course Catalog - 1879-1880 [PAGE 63]

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College of Natural Science.

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ditions of existence, as manifest in their Comparative Anatomy; Systematic Zoology, so that the orders may be recognized at sight, etc. Nicholson's Manual of Zoology is used as a text-book. Osteology and Taxidermy are taught in extra classes. Osteology is taken up the winter term, to give the student a practical and theoretical knowledge of the vertebrate skeleton. It consists in laboratory work, alternating daily with a study of the comparative Osteological collections in connection with recitations from " Flower's Osteology " as text. In the laboratory, special attention is given to the cleaning and mounting of both Ligamentary and Articulated skeletons. Taxidermy is commenced the spring term, and is designed to fit the student for the practical operations of collecting, preserving, and mounting objects of Natural History. During the early part of the term special attention is given to the collection and " making " of skins of Birds and Mammals, and numerous specimens are so collected and prepared by each student; while the latter part of the term is occupied in mounting specimens from both fresh and dried skins. Geology.—In Geology, Dana's Manual is used; commencing with Dynamical Geology, which explains the forces known to produce observed phenomena in the crust of the earth; as Life, in the formation of lime-stone, coal, peat; water, in eroding, transporting and depositing material for strata ; heat, as manifested in consolidation, metamorphism and crystallization, as well as mountain folds on the surface of a shrinking globe. Lithological Geology is the next term's work. This treats of the kinds, nature and material of rocks, stratified and unstratified ; their mineral constituents; structure original or induced; concretions, veins, dykes, etc.; methods of determining the chronological order of the strata. Also the historic development of the earth as revealed by Paleontology, or the entombed fossils of the Silurian and Devonian ages. The third term explains the Carboniferous age with its coal, the Reptilian and Mammalian ages, with their wonderful inhabitants ; the Glacial period with its continent of ice, and through to the present time. Here also are discussed the elements of Time, the system of Life, the origin of Species, the climax in Man. Physical Geography and Meteorology.—The principles of the phenomena manifest in the life of the earth bear the same relation to Geology that Physiology does to Anatomy. This subject, a