Natural history collector

“ When it is said, "The work is impracticable, because specimens can not be obtained," the teachers will reply: "Several towns have already appropriated ten and twenty dollars for the purchase of natural history collections, and these can be used a number of years. Teachers awakened to the new and beautiful revelations of nature are preserving specimens at the sea-shore and in the country. ”

“ The history of the origin and development of collections of natural history is not devoid of interest, perhaps even profitable for science and for the important question as to which would be the most convenient arrangement of a collection. ”

“ We may hope that this union will promote the completion of the national collections which, already fairly representative in geology, may hereafter include archives, paintings, and objects illustrating ethnology and all branches of Natural History. In science we have men whose names are widely known, and the vast field for study and exploration afforded by this magnificent country may be expected to reward, by valuable discoveries, the labours of the geologist and mineralogist. ”

“ Their colonization did not commence until the physical sciences had become matter of utmost universal attention, and is, indeed, so recent that the memory of living men embraces the principal epochs of their history; the peculiarities of their fauna, their flora, and their geology are such as to have excited for them the liveliest interest of the votaries of natural science; their mines have given their people the necessary wealth for procuring the means of instrumental observation, and the leisure required for the pursuit of scientific research ”

“ Whilst we should patriotically aspire to render the local collection as perfect as possible, I would not by any means have the usefulness of museums stop here. Comparing any local collection with a general collection, it will, of course, be found that many important groups of 'animals, vegetables, and minerals, are but imperfectly represented, whilst others are altogether blank. There is, consequently, great danger of very limited and inadequate notions of the great system of Nature being formed by the student who confines his attention to local natural history. ”

“ Beside these reports, the results of the survey appear in eight several collections of specimens of the animals, plants, soils, minerals, rocks and fossils, found within the State—one of which collections constitutes a museum of natural history at the capital of the State, and the others are distributed among collegiate institutions. We rejoice at the completion of this great survey, and hope soon to see a similar exploration effected in every State of the Union. The cause of science will receive from it an aid of which scientific men alone can rightly estimate the value. ”

“ The natural history collections contained in the museum of science, although the institution was only founded in 1896, are large and important, and are particularly rich in mineralogy, geology, paleontology, botany and zoology. The entomological collections are among the most important in the new world. The conchological collections are vast, and the paleontological collections are among the most important in America. ”

“ Still, however, there is no authentic or satisfactory instance of human remains being found, except in deposits obviously of very modern date; a tolerably strong proof that the creation of our own species is a comparatively recent event, and one posterior (generally speaking) to all the great natural transactions chronicled by geology. ”

“ So imperfect has the science of natural history remained down to our own times that, within the memory of persons now living, the numbers of known animals and plants have doubled, or even quadrupled, in many classes. New and often conspicuous species are annually discovered in parts of the old continent long inhabited by the most civilized nations. ”

“ When the boys left this museum, they went to another and saw a wonderful collection of fossil animals, skeletons, birds, minerals, precious stones, and other natural specimens, but as they were not learned men, they could only walk about and stare, enjoy the little knowledge of natural history they possessed, and wish with all their hearts they had acquired more. ”

“ In our own days more especially, eager and enthusiastic students are abroad over the whole face of the globe, and are gathering together from every country the Fossil Remains of extinct worlds. By the aid of Natural History they seek to assign to each its own proper place in the ranks of creation; to trace the rise, the progress, and the extinction of every species in its turn; and even to describe the nature and the character of all the various forms of life that have dwelt upon the Earth from the beginning. ”

“ Great pains were spent in collecting all sorts of objects illustrating the changes of the globe upon which we live, and the distribution and habits of animals and plants—in short, all the departments of Natural History; whilst, strange to say, people for the most part neglected traces of men, the remains not only of their own ancestors, but also of all the different races who have been spread over the world. The antiquities, with the exception of those of Roman and Greek origin, were regarded as mere curiosities, without any scientific value. ”

“ In the first place, those who are at all observant—and no true lover of Nature can be suspected of being otherwise—will become acquainted with the objects under natural conditions, and so be enabled to appreciate them more highly than could be the case if they were obtained in any other way. The chief purpose in making a collection of Natural History specimens should be study of some kind rather than mere accumulation. ”

“ In conclusion of these remarks it may be observed, however, that while in our elucidation of those rarities which the collections and museums above adverted to have so amply afforded, we render a deserved tribute of record to the liberality of those whose services in the cause of Natural History have so amply contributed to its advancement in former days, the author will not remain unmindful of those advantages which the many valuable collections of the present period offer. ”

“ In the present condition of our knowledge and of our methods, one verdict—"not proven, and not provable"—must be recorded against all the grand hypotheses of the paleontologist respecting the general succession of life on the globe. The order and nature of terrestrial life, as a whole, are open questions. Geology at present provides us with most valuable topographical records, but she has not the means of working them into a universal history. ”

“ If, however, the isolated individuality of the elder nations of the world's history confers on each of them an interest which we seek for in vain in those of the medieval era of transition, man also has a peculiar individuality which gives a value to the most perishable relics he casts behind him in his brief lifetime. To the geologist one perfect example is a certain type of its species, and hence a complete geological collection is a conceivable thing ”

“ If the geological record were more perfect, or even if we had as good a knowledge of that record in all parts of the world as we have in Europe and North America, we could arrive at much more accurate results than we are able to do with our present very imperfect knowledge of extinct forms of life; but even with our present scanty information we are able to throw much light upon the past history of our globe and its inhabitants, and can sketch out with confidence many of the changes they must have undergone. ”

“ The science of archeology has contributed to our knowledge some of the most fascinating chapters in culture history, for it has brought to light, from the night of the past, periods of human development hitherto unrecorded. As the paleontologist through his method has revealed faunas whose like were formerly unknown to the naturalist, the archeologist by the use of the same method of research has resurrected extinct phases of culture that have attained a high development and declined before recorded history began. ”

“ Collecting in the field is one side of Natural History research, but there is, as you are aware, another side—the painstaking study of the specimens after they are unpacked on the museum benches at home. ”

“ And so Geologists go on ever searching out new phenomena, and grouping them together into classes, until from particular facts they lead us to general truths. Then starting with these general truths as the groundwork of their science, they proceed to sketch out the Natural History of our Globe from the remotest ages of the past down to the present time. They first study the stratified deposits of each succeeding age, and analyze the Fossil Remains embedded therein ”

“ But I advocate natural-history knowledge from this point of view, because it would lead us to seek the beauties of natural objects, instead of trusting to chance to force them on our attention. To a person uninstructed in natural history, his country or sea-side stroll is a walk through a gallery filled with wonderful works of art, nine-tenths of which have their faces turned to the wall. Teach him something of natural history, and you place in his hands a catalogue of those which are worth turning round. ”

“ Such a relation our National Museum should hold to scientific men and affairs in America. It should receive and take care of all material that has been or may be valuable for investigation or for the illustration of the ethnology, natural history, geology, products, and resources of our own country, or for comparison with the material of other countries. It should furnish material for all kinds of scientific investigations which deal with specimens or types, and give aid to such researches and publish their results. ”

“ Geology was but just beginning to make good its claim to a place among the sciences. This unfolded to man the physical history of the world as read from the rocks, and deals with times so vast and profound that we speak no longer of years, but of ages. And with the aid of Geology grand secrets were wrung from the past, and new light was thrown on the manners and customs of primitive man. Thus the foundation for still another science was laid, called Archæology, or the science of Human Antiquities. ”

“ Much knowledge is lost because it comes in the way of those who do not know how to profit by it or to record it. Accordingly, just as the Natural History Museum has issued a series of pamphlets of advice to the collectors of natural history specimens, so it has been thought that a handbook of elementary information and advice may be found of service by travellers with archaeological tastes ”

“ But of all the sources of information regarding bygone mutations of the surface of the land, undoubtedly the most important is that supplied by the testimony of geology. Early human chronicles are not only imperfect, but may be erroneous. The chronicle, however, which Nature has compiled of her past vicissitudes, though it may be fragmentary, is, at least, accurate. In interpreting it the geologist is liable, indeed, to make mistakes; but these can be corrected by subsequent investigation, while the natural chronicle itself remains unaffected by them. ”

“ As, however, the truths of geology became gradually formulated into a science, and men's minds got accustomed to apply the new methods of research to the elucidation of the origin and history of the human race, the sphere of prehistoric archæology became equally well defined. ”

“ To facilitate the investigations of the natural historian, there were numerous zoological collections, where the habits and characteristics of animals and birds of every description could be observed and noted for the present entertainment and future profit of mankind. ”

“ The precision of modern scientific language, the generalization of the innumerable objects of natural history into classes, orders, tribes, and families, and the accuracy and minute details which the representations of recent artists present, have fortunately all combined to diminish the necessity for the innumerable figures of the older naturalists, the latter cause having increased their cost so greatly, as materially to diminish their production, even to the extent required for the elucidation of the rapid advances natural history is now making. ”

“ Are we to believe that our knowledge of the geological record is too imperfect to warrant any important generalizations? Do our museums fully represent the fossilized remains of bygone forms of life? Are all the extinct organisms which have been exhumed registered in the published lists? ”

“ The visitor to the British Museum passes through galleries containing fossil relics of the secondary and tertiary geological periods—the gigantic evidences of former life, the tropical fauna of the carboniferous system, and all the organic and inorganic proofs by which we are guided in investigating the physical changes, and classifying the extinct beings, that pertained to the older world of which they speak. ”

“ These, it must be owned, are less strong traces of the birds than we possess of the reptiles and other tribes; but it must be remembered, that the evidence of fossils, as to the absence of any class of animals from a certain period of the earth’s history, can never be considered as more than negative. Animals, of which we find no remains in a particular formation, may, nevertheless, have lived at the time, and it may have only been from unfavourable circumstances that their remains have not been preserved for our inspection. ”

“ In the generation that has elapsed since the first drawing of the cave-dweller artist was discovered, evidences of the wide-spread existence of man in an early epoch have multiplied indefinitely, and to-day the paleontologist traces the history of our race back beyond the iron and bronze ages, through a neolithic or polished-stone age, to a paleolithic or rough-stone age, with confidence born of unequivocal knowledge. ”