Transcribe Notice of the Ward cabinets...the University of Rochester (1863)

                                              OPINIONS OF SCIENTIFIC MEN.                                   25

Thus the famous Mosasaurus Hoffmani from the Garden of Plants, Cuvier's Maestricht specimen, never before allowed to be copied, is now available to American collections; Prof. Ward having the moulds for reproducing this and a large number of other celebrated and unique specimens, like the head of Deinotherium.

We have received the following note from Prof. Hitchcock in reference to the cast of Deinotherium which has been recently added to the Museum at Amherst, as well as to Prof. Ward's collection.

                  FROM PROF. E. HITCHCOCK, SENIOR. 

"A fine plaster cast of the head of a Deinotherium of the natural size, has just been added to the cabinet of Amherst College. As this is the first cast of this unique specimen ever prepared in this country, I have thought that you might like a brief notice of it. It was executed in Rochester, New York, under the direction of Prof. Henry A. Ward, of the University of that place, from a copy recently received by him from Germany, and is done very skillfully and perfectly. It makes a very strong impression on the beholder. One sees that this animal must have been the largest of all terrestrial quadrupeds yet discovered (if indeed it was terrestrial), and that the power of the curved tusks in his lower jaw, must have been enormous in grubbing up roots. The huge nasal fossae are, also, apparently, striking proof of the existence in the living animal of a huge proboscis, such as is usually figured. Pictet and others, as you know, place this animal among the Sirenoids.

Mr. Ward expects to receive and to copy, also, in a few weeks, a cast of the femur of the Deinotherium, five feet long, as well as some other bones; and a head reduced in size. The cost of the cast which h has received, with a platform and irons for mounting, is one hundred and twenty dollars, and it has been presented to the College by myself and Ephraim Brown, Esq., pf Lowell.

I do not remember to have seen in your Journal any description of the splendid cabinet which Professor Ward has collected, now on exhibition in Rochester. By incredible industry, and visiting almost every important locality in Europe, and many in Asia and Africa, as well as in this country, and expending much money, he has brought together a geological cabinet unequalled, as a whole, in the United States; also a very large collection of simple minerals