Transcribe Ward series of casts of fossils (check list), 1870

ii INTRODUCTION.

of the great life-history of our globe - essential links in the chain of Zoological series - instead of mere "medals" for the identification of strata. Some of the greatest questions as to the past condition of the earth are to be answered only by the study of fossils in connection with living forms.

But a Palaeontological cabinet, in order to serve its end, must possess a certain completeness. To illustrate certain forms of primeval life in undue proportion, accumulating species under some few genera, and leaving whole families, orders, and even classes of the fossil Zoological series entirely unrepresented, is to distort nature. This sort of exclusiveness is an unavoidable feature in the drawers of a Palaeontologist who is working on a special fauna or some particular zoological division of fossils. But to accomplish the purposes of general instruction, a cabinet of fossils should be as complete as possible, covering the whole ground, and giving an unbroken view of ancient life. What our Institutions must have as the primary condition of their success in the Natural Sciences, - and yet that which, it must be said, our Academies and many of our Colleges totally lack, - is a consistent and well-proportioned exhibition of all the Classes in the several departments of nature.

in fact, a glance at what is called a "Geological Cabinet" in the great majority of our Colleges reveals a gross caricature. There are scores of specimens of the same species, while the paucity of generic types and the absence of entire Families, Orders and Classes attests the results of explorations in a limited area, and among the forms belonging to a single geological period and a single zoological province. Such a collection is of value if earnestly and thoroughly studied in connection with the strata which furnished it, but it is utterly insufficient to give a correct idea of the broad features of ancient animal life at various times and over the entire globe. The Corals, Crinoids, Brachiopods and Trilobites, which unduly preponderate in cabinets made in the Palaeozoic areas of our Northern, Middle and Western States, should be rounded out and symmetrized by suitable additions of higher and different forms from Mesozoic and Tertiary rocks of other parts of the world.

With methodic, intelligent effort, and judicious expenditure of funds, this difficulty may be met and the desired variety obtained. But our Museum still has a defect which is it impossible to overcome other than in one way. Unless the funds to invest have been princely, and the facilities for securing choice material very great, and extended over a long period of years, we shall find that our specimens show but trivial portions of the larger and in some sense, more interesting and