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

                      GEOLOGY AS A BRANCH OF EDUCATION                                         39

Torrey and Loomis. But after a personal visit to Rochester, we exclaim- 'The half has not been told us.' We can understand the feeling of Henry Ward Beecher in passing through the Jardin des Plantes - 'I seemed to have God's wide-spread earth presented to me at a sight. I never before had such a conception of what had been done in making our globe.' How different such a colossal Cabinet from the omnium gatherum which forms many museums! It is the most complete collection this side of the Atlantic; and travelers have ranked it among the great Cabinets of the world. When we say it contains 8,000 distinct species of fossils from Europe, besides those from our own country, we need not add that such a Cabinet was needed. Its splendor is only incidental; its one object is to afford sound instruction in one of the most interesting and practical branches of human knowledge. As such, it is an inexhaustible reservoir. The plan of arrangement combines the excellencies of the great European Cabinets, with their educational features even intensified. Every specimen is choice; it is nature's own lithograph of herself - line for line. No one can enter this truly cosmological museum without believing that he ha before him, in one volume God's narrative of creation. For he who classifies the results of those six days of labor by the erection of a complete repository of natural objects in natural order, is a translator of the Creator's thoughts. In thus arraying our fragmentary knowledge into system, he is again bringing order out of chaos. nd what endless food for inspiration is here! We have the sublime vision of Adam when Michael purged 'his visual nerves with euphrasy and rue.' To compare great things with small - we seem to be sitting at the foot of a gigantic Egyptian obelisk or Assyrian frieze, across whose granite face stalks a long processions of hieroglyphic figures, all charged with the profoundest meaning. "Through the sterling sense and measured liberality of the citizens of Rochester (one of whom, Mr. Lewis Brooks, contributed $5,000), this magnificent collection now belongs to the University of that city. And hereafter we shall expect to see students of Geology trooping to the banks of the Genesee, as now they swarm around the moss-grown museums on the Seine and the Thames. We are proud to record the fact that there is in the United States one institution where the science of the earth may be pursued as thoroughly and comprehensively as at any University in the world. We commend for imitation such far-sighted benevolence. They who