IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 7 / '^ O ^ fA f/j 1.0 I.I ■ 50 ""^^ •If U4 1(0 M 2.2 S 1^ 120 P5 i I 4 1.6 I V] <^ c". ^? ^; / /A ;{v iV ^ <^ -^^ % V :^«?, |i CIHM/ICMH Microfiche Series. CIHIVI/ICIVIH Collection de microfiches. Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions Institut Canadian de microreproductions historiques 1980 Technical Notes / Notes techniques The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available for filming. Physical features of this copy which may alter any of the images in the reproduction are checked below. n D Coloured covers/ Couvertures de couleur Coloured maps/ Cartes g6ographiques en couleur Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/ Pages ddcolordes, tachetdes ou piqu6en Tight binding (may cause shadows or distortion along interior margin)/ Reliure serr6 (peut causer de I'ombre ou de la distortion le long de la marge int^rieure) L'Institut a microfilm^ le meilleur exemplaire qu'il lui a 6t6 possible de se procurer. Certains ddfauts susceptibtes de nuire A la quality de la reproduction sont not6s ci-dessous. D D D D Coloured pages/ Pages de couleur Coloured plates/ Planches en couleur Show through/ Transparence Pages damaged/ Pages endommagdes Th po of fii CO or ap T^ fii in M in be fo n Additional comments/ Commentaires suppldmentaires Bibliographic Notes / Notes bibliographiques D D n D D Only edition available/ Seule Edition disponible Bound with other material/ Reli6 avec d'autres documents Cover title missing/ Le titre de couverture manque Plates missing/ Des planches manquent Additional comments/ Commentaires suppldmentaires D D D Pagination incorrect/ Erreurs de pagination Pages missing/ Des pages manquent Maps missing/ Des cartes gdographiques manquent ( ns la The images appearing here are the best quality possible considering the condition and legibility of the original copy and in keeping with the filming contract specifications. The last recorded frame on each microfiche shall contain the symbol — »► (meaning CONTINUED"), or the symbol V (meaning "END"), whichever applies. Les images suivantes ont 6t6 reprodultes avec le plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition et de la nettet6 de I'exemplaire filmd, et en confornvtd avec les conditions du contrat de filmage. Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la der- nidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: ie symbole —^ signifie "A SUIVRE", le symbole V signifie "FIN". The original copy was borrowed from, and filmed with, the kind consent of the following institution: Library of the Public Archives of Canada Maps or plates too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: L'exemplaire film6 fut reproduit grdce d la g6n6rosit6 de I'dtablissement prdteur suivant : La bibliothdque des Archives publiques du Canada Les cartes ou les planches trop grandes pour dtre reproduites en un seul cliche sont filmdes d partir de Tangle sup6rieure gauche, de gauche d droite et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images n^cessaire. Le diagramme suivant illustre la mdthode : 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 ^ '■'/ ■^ / OTrAWA, OHT. / ■ .ii^c.'^ ^ J^^ NOTES OF A VISIT TO SCIENTIFIC SCHOOLS iND lUllSEllMS IN THE UNITED STATES By Principal Dawson, LL.D., F.R.S., &c. I _ (It( printed from the Canadian Naturalist.) NOTES OF A VISIT TO SCIENTIFIC SCHOOLS AND MUSEUMS IN THE UNITED STATES By Principal Dawson, LL.D., F.ll.S., &c. Away from snow and frost, on the rail, rapidly sweeping through New England villages with their snug homes and busy factories, we approach the great western emporium, the lesser London, the commercial capital of the '' greater Britain" of the western world — already numbering its million and a half of people, and rivalling old London in all the higher and lower phases of a city life. Our business is not with either its trade or its gaiety. We have first to tell to such of its people as care to know of such old world things, our story about " Primeval Forests," and then to scrutinise, under the guidance of our friend Dr. Newberry, the class-rooms, laboratories and museums of Columbia college, a workshop of mind, aiming to train young men to that practical grasp of science which shall enable tliem to apply its principles to the better extraction and working into useful purposes of the dark treasures of mother earth. Columbia College is a brick building in a quaint old fashioned square, once out of town, but overgrown by the rapid increase of the great city, which swallows up farms, estates, and country houses as if they were mere morsels to its voracious appetite. The building, which was intended for an asylum, forms three sides of a quadrangle, and has many long narrow rooms well lighted by windows in the sides. It is regarded as merely a temporary reHidence for the college, whose large endowment of nearly $1,500,000 is being in great part retained by its trustees as a basis for more extended operations than those of the present " School of Mines." Still it is well adapted to its use, and has been admirably arranged. Three of its long rooms, like the wards of a hospital, but with tables and shelves instead of beds, are fitted up as working laboratories in which a hundred and twenty students may at once pursue qualitative and quantita- tive analysis. Another room in the basement is furnished with furnaces and other appliaaces for assaying in the dry way. Another is arranged for drawing, and there are several plainly furnished but commodious class rooms. One of the rooms is devoted to the collection of minerals, which is very neatly arranged in flat cases, with abundant illustrations of crystalline forms interspersed. Another contains the collections of geology and palaeontology, in great part consisting of the private cabinet of Professor Newberry, and especially rich in the flora of the coal period, and in illustrations of the ores and other economic pro- ducts of America. The staff of Columbia College consists of eighteen Professors, lecturers, and assistants, representing the subjects of mineralogy, metallurgy, chemistry, botany, mathematics, mechanics, physics, geology and palasontology, assaying and drawing. Its course extends over three years, and embraces the work necessary to qualify for practical operations in mineral surveying, mining, metallurgy and practical chemistry. Students are required on entrance to pass an examination in algebra, geometry and trigono- metry. Though it has been in operation on its present basis only for a few years, it had in its last catalogue 109 students, the greater part of whom, on attaining to the degree of " Engineer of Mines " or " Bachelor of Philosophy," will go out as practical workers in mines and manufactories. An important feature of the course is that students are expected in the vacation to visit mines and metallurgical and chemical establishments, and to report thereon and make illustrative collections ; while during the session short excursions are made to machine shops and metal- lurgical establishments in and near the city. It is probable that Columbia College is little cared for or thought of by the greater part of the busy multitudes of New York ; yet if a map of the city were made on the principle of the missionary maps, but illustrating the places where true induBtrial progress is being pro- . vided for, it would be a very white spot, though but a very small one, in the great Babel. From New York to New Haven is from a great city with small science to a small city in which science bulks relntivcly larger. On Christmas Day we looked in upon l*rotl'ssor Marsh, almost buried among all that is richest and rarest in new scien- tific literature and choice specimens, and enjoyed again the genial look and kindly greeting of our friend Silliman, and chatted for a little with the keen philosophic Dana, shattered indeed in health, but still growing inwardly in spirit. Tl e Sheffield Scientific School is a modern outgrowth of tlie old University of Yale College ; and originated in 1847 in tl e organization of tl.e " Department of Philosophy and Arts," under Professors Silliman and Norton, representing respectively the subjects of Applied Chemistry and Agriculture. The scheme seems to have been devised by the elder Silliman, and to have had its birth in his private efforts in previous years to givo practical instruction to special students. This department wa.s maintained with moderate success for several years ; but at length in 1860 Mr. Sheffield, a wealthy citizen of New Haven, came forward to its aid with the handsome gift of a building and apparatus valued at over $50,000 and a fund of $50,000 more to endow Professorships of Engineering, Metallurgy and Chemistry. This enlightened benefaction at once placed the school on a respectable footing, and in 1863 it was further enlarged by the application to its use of the share of the State of Connecticut in the large grants of land made by Congress in that year for purposes of scientific education, —grants which have borne similar good fruit in many other States. The Sheffield School will also be a large sharer in the benefits which the University will derive from the great Museum founded by Mr. Peabody, and endowed by him with the sum of $150,000. The present extremely valuable collections of Yale College are stored in rooms of quite inadecjuate dimensions, and are being rapidly augmented and improved. Prof. Marsh and Prof. Verrill alone have vast stores of fossils, corals and other specimens, in base- ments and cellars ; and when the whole shall be arranged in Mr. Peabody 's Museum, Yale College will be inferior to few Academic institutions in the world in regard to its facilities for teaching the science of nature through the eye. A special collection in the Sheffield School, very valuable and well worthy of Study, is that of economic geology. It is admirably arranged, and gives at one view an idea of nearly all tlie sources of the mineral wealth of the United States from the Atlantic border to the Pacific. The building of tlie Sheffield School is better than that of Columbia College, though it is an old medical school adapted to its present use ; and the scope of tlie institution is wider, includ- ing six distinct courses, any of which may be followed by the student. These are: 1st, Chemistty and Mineralogy; 2nd, En- gineering and 3Iechanics ; lird. Mining and Metallurgy ; 4th, Agriculture ; bih, Natural History and Geology ; 6th, A Select Scientific and Literary Course. The class-rooms and laboratories struck me as remarkably ingenious and neat in all their arrange- ments, and combining in a great degree all possible contrivances for the convenience of Professors and students. The bungling and uncomfortable arrangements too often seen in Academic rooms had evidently here been replaced by the exercise of some engineering and mechanical skill and contrivance, and by a com- bination of lecture room and cabinet the means of illustration had been rendered extremely accessible. In token that the Sheffield School is not altogether a school of mines looking down into the bowels of the earth, its liberal founder has presented it with an Equatorial Telescope, made by Clark, with an object glass having an aperture of nine inches. It is placed in a tower constructed for it ; and with a meridian circle and other instru- ments, enables students to learn all the work of a regular observatory, as well as the operations of astrononiical geodesy. Any one interested in the training of the young men of Canada can scarcely avoid a feeling of envy in visiting such an institution as this, furnished with so many facilities for enabling the active mind of youth to grasp all that is of practical utility or pro- vocative of liigh and noble thought in the heaven above and in the earth beneath. At tliis moment a Canadian Sheffield, judiciously aiding any University having an adequate and per- manent basis, would do more to promote the trade and manufac- tures of this country, and its scientific reputation, than can be done by any other agency. The faculty of the Sheffield School includes twenty-three names, and its roll of students numbers one hundred and forty. It is scarcely necessary to say that several of the Professors at Yale are active and successful original workers, and that the place is not only an efiective scientific school, sending out each year a large corps of trained men into the higher practical pursuits connected with science, but also an important centre of discovery and original investigation, further materials for wliieh are being constantly accumulated. More especially in geology, mineralogy, palaeontology, zoology and chemistry, are such men as Dana, Silliman, Marsh, Brush iind Verrill adding to the stock of knowledge for the wliole world, as well as training their students. And this one of the results in all cases of a well appointed and efficient school of science. Crossing the dark harbour of New York, cumbered with cakes of ice ; and rapidly rolling over flat New Jersey, interest- ing for its curious deposits of the green-sand of the old Cretaceous Sea, now quarried as a manure, and to be seen in heaps green almost as grass, by the roadside, wc reach pleasant, quiet Phila- delphia, in which among chief objects of interest to a scientific traveller, are the collections of its old and u.seful Academy of Sciences, a scientific workshop as vigorous in its age as any of its more youthful rivals, though sadly in want of enlarged apart- ments for its collections. Hawkins had just been setting up here the skeleton of the TTadrosaurus of the New Jersey green-sand, one of the most portentous of those old reptiles of that Mesozoic age, when the giant "tanninim" were the lords vi jreation. It must have been a creature four-filths reptile and the rest bird, standing upright twenty feet in height, on two enormous legs with three-toed feet, and an immense pil!ar-like tail, while its small fore feet were used as hands to 'lid it in obtaining the fruits or other vegetable substances c i which it fed. It might be described as a gigantic reptilian kangaroo with the toes of a bird ; and were it not for the actual bones proving that it had existed, a zoologist would scarcely have the hardihood to imagine such a creature in his dreams. We stard amazed beside the skeleton of the Mastodon or the Megatherium, but not with the feeling almost of disbelief in our senses excited by the strange combination of characters in this wonderful animal, which among other things shows how the apparent bird-tracks of the Mesozoic rocks, or some of them, may have been made by biped reptiles, strange and gigantic anticipations of the attitude of man himself. As a companion, or rather a formidable enemy, to this animal, Mr. Cope, who is studying these remains, showed me portions of the skeleton of a gigantic carnivorous reptile of the same age, with formidable teeth like those of Megalosaurus, and 8 hooked c;iixed with a few glass beads, perhaps almost as precious. The other is a Dakotah vhild, in full dress, with neatly made coat and Icggins, and prettily worked mocassins, and a broad collar of white and blue beads and brass buttons neatly strung on leather. These, though 13 quite modern, reminded me of the quantities of precious strings of wampum^laid up in some ancient graves of Indian babes in British America, and which remain after the furs, no doubt clothing the bodies, have decayed. A higher phase of our humanity is represented by these remains than by tlie inventions of the Patent Office — the love that survives the death of its object, and which, in the absence alike of human philosophy and Divine revelation, preaches with a force stronger than sense and mere reason, that the loved one " is not dead but sleopeth," and will awake in another world, whither affection can follow it only by decking its poor remains in the best robe and burying it witli the most costly treasures. Such faith in the Indian mother may be very simple and ignorant ; but it is surely a better and holier thing than that cold skepticism which, while grovelling in a base selfishness, looks up in its higher flights of reason and imagination to tell us that man is but a better kind of brute, an aggregate of blind material forces.