Repository: UIHistories Project: Course Catalog - 1893-1894 [PAGE 23]

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MUSEUMS AND COLLECTIONS.

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Agriculture.—A collection of soils from different portions of Illinois and other states; many varieties of corn, wheat, and other cereals and seeds; specimens illustrating the official state inspection of grains at Chicago, showing the quality of the different grades recognized; models of agricultural inventions; models illustrating modes and materials for drains; casts of ancient plows; engravings, lithographs, and photographs of typical animals of noted breeds. The farm gives good illustrations of farm buildings, implements, machinery, modes of culture, and of domestic animals of various classes. Physics.—The cabinets of the physical laboratory contain a collection of apparatus from the most celebrated European and American makers, illustrating the subjects of mechanics, pneumatics, optics, and electricity. A series of standard weights and measures from the office of the Coast and Geodetic Survey of the United States may be consulted at the physical laboratory. MUSEUM OF INDUSTRIAL ARTS. A large room is devoted to a museum of practical art, the materials for which are constantly accumulating in the various scientific departments. Prominent among the agricultural specimens here exhibited is an excellent collection of the sub-species and varieties of Indian corn, including the best of their kinds; a considerable collection of small grains and of grasses; a collection of fibres in various states of manufacture, and a series of analyses of grains, showing at a glance the elements and proportion of structure. The museum contains full lines of illustrations of the work of the shops; models made at the University or purchased abroad; drawings in all departments; Patent Office models, etc ; samples of building materials, natural and artificial; a large collection illustrating the forestry of Illinois, Florida, and California; with whatever may be secured that will teach or illustrate in this most important phase of university work. The exhibit made by the University at the Centennial and Cotton Exposition at New Orleans, finds a permanent abode in this apartment, and very large additions have been made of materials received from the Columbian Exposition of 1893. A notable feature of this collection is the gift of Henry Lord Gay, architect, of Chicago. It consists of a model in plaster and a complete set of drawings of a competitive design for a monument to be erected in Rome, commemorative of Victor Emanuel, first king of Italy. The monument was to be of white marble, an elaborate Gothic structure, beautifully ornamented, and 300 feet high. Its estimated cost was to have