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

iv INTRODUCTION.

collection its desired symmetry was by the introduction, in the classification, of Plaster Copies, of very many of these fossils, the originals of which are either unique specimens or are so very rare that it is altogether impossible to obtain them. The series of extinct forms can by this plan be made substantially complete, and the Cabinet enriched by many specimens of great scientific value, and of great attractiveness to the general visitor. The author has obtained these casts by the slow labor of years, seeking copy of the best original wherever it was to be found. Many of the rarer and most noted specimens are from the British Museum, and the Garden of Plants at Paris. Others are from the Royal Museums in Berlin, Vienna, Copenhagen, St. Petersburg, Munich, Turin, Lyons, Darmstadt, Haarlem, &c. In American he has received generous assistance in the privilege of copying specimens from the Academy of Natural Sciences, at Philadelphia, the Boston Society of Natural History, the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge, the celebrated Ichnological Museum of Amherst College, and the unrivalled collection of American Palaeozoic fossils of Professor James Hall, of Albany. The Ward Museum of the University of Rochester has also supplied originals of some choice and rare fossils in the Vertebrate division, and very many of the finest Invertebrate specimens, particularly among the Cephalopod Molluscs, the Crinoids, and the Sponges.

Those who examine the Catalogue here given, or glance at the Summary at its close, will see that the Zoological Series is very complete through nearly all its Classes and Order, while the great Periods of Geological time are each well represented.

Especial attention is, however, called to a few of the more prominent and interesting objects.

Among MAMMALS, the Human skeleton from Guadaloupe is of peculiar and unique interest, as are also the skulls of primeval men from the Neanderthal and Engis Caverns.

The series of Ruminants and Pachyderms from the Sewalik Hills - outliers of the Himmalaya - form a strange group, first described in the publications of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Many of these originals were formerly the property of the East India Company, but are now in the British Museum. From the same Museum are the huge, uncouth fossil Edentates from the Pampas of South America, --the Megatherium, Scelidotherium and Glyptodon, - which, like the Marsupial Diprotodon, furnished Owen the materials for some of his most masterly Monographs. The Palaeotherium, Anthracotherium, Anopltotherium, and other forms from the Gypsum beds of Monmarte,