Notes on Collecting and Preserving Natural-History Objects. Various

a great mistake to imagine that a full set of scientific instruments makes a scientific man. The following hammers, intended for different purposes, ought to be procured. Fig. 1 is an exceedingly useful weapon, and one we commonly use, to the exclusion of all others. It is handy for breaking off fragments of rock for examination; and, if fossils be included in them, for trimming the specimens for cabinet purposes. As a rule, however, field geologists are always divided over the merits of their hammers, some preferring one shape and some another. Fig. 2 is generally used for breaking up hard rocks, for which the bevel-shaped head is peculiarly adapted. It is usually much heavier than the rest, and is seldom used except for specific purposes. If our readers are inclined to study sections of boulder clay, and wish to extract the rounded and angular boulder from its stiff matrix, they cannot do better than use a hammer like Fig. 3. This is sometimes called the "Platypus" pick. Both ends can be used, and the pick end is also good for working on soft rocks, like chalk. A little practice in the field will teach the student how to use these tools, and when, much better than we can describe on paper. The hammers can be obtained from any Scientific instrument manufacturer, or from any of the dealers in geological specimens. We have found that the best hammers for usage, however, were to be made out of an old file, softened and well welded, rolled, and then hammered into a solid mass. If properly tempered a hammer made in this fashion will last you your life.

      Fig. 3. "Platypus" Pick for clay, &c.

      So much for the rougher weapons of geological strife. Next, be sure and provide yourself with thick-soled shoes or boots. Geological study will take you into a good many queer places, wet and dry, rough and smooth, and it is absolutely necessary to be prepared for the worst. Patent leather boots and kid gloves are rarely worn by practical geologists. And we have heard it remarked at the British Association meetings, that they could always tell which members belonged to the Geological Section by their thick-soled boots. A similar remark applies to clothes. The student need not dress for the quarry as he would for the dining room. Good, strong, serviceable material ought to be their basis.

      Secondly, as to the student's comforts and necessaries. These are generally the last thing an ardent naturalist thinks about. For ourselves, however, we give him ample leave to provide himself with pipe and tobacco, should his tastes lie in that direction. We never enjoyed a pipe half so much as when solitarily disinterring organic remains which had slumbered in the heart of the rock for myriads of ages. As to the beer, we can vouch that it never tastes anything like so good as during a geological excursion.

      We have found the leathern bags sold for school-book purposes to be as handy to deposit specimens in, during a journey, as anything else. They have the merit of being cheap, are strong, and easily carried. If not large enough, then get a strong, coarse linen haversack, like that worn by volunteers on a field day. Paper, cotton wadding (not wool), sawdust for fragments of larger fossils, intended to be repaired at home, wooden pill-boxes, and a few boxes, which may be obtained from any practical naturalist, with glass tops, are sufficient "stock-in-trade" for the young geologist. The wadding does not adhere to the specimens as wool does, and the glass-topped boxes are useful, as it is not then necessary to open a box and disinter a delicate fossil from its matrix in order to look at it. Add a good strong pocket lens, such as may be bought for half-a-crown, and your equipment will be complete. If you intend to study any particular district, get the sheets published by the Geological Survey. These will give you, on a large scale, the minute geology of the neighbourhood, the succession of rocks, faults, outcrops, &c. In fact, you may save yourself a world of trouble by thus preparing yourself a week or so before you make your geological excursion. The pith of these remarks applies with equal force if you purpose, first of all, to examine the neighbourhood in which you live. Don't do so until you have read all that has been written about it, and examined all the available maps and sections. This advice however, applies more particularly to geological examination of strata. If you are bent chiefly on palæontological investigation, that is, on the study of fossils, perhaps it will be best just to read any published remarks you may have access to, and then boldly take the field for yourself. In addition to a hammer, we would advise the young student to take a good narrow-pointed steel chisel, and a putty-knife. The former is very useful for working round, and eventually obtaining, any fossil that may have been weathered into relief. The latter is equally serviceable for clayey rocks or shales.

      In arranging the spoils of these excursions for the cabinet, a little care and taste are required. We will suppose you to possess one of those many-drawered cabinets which can now be obtained so cheaply. Begin at the bottom, so that the lowest drawers represent the lowest-seated and oldest rocks, and the uppermost the most recent. If possible, have an additional cabinet for local geology, and never forget that the first duty of a collector is to have his own district well represented! A compass of a few miles will, in most cases, enable him to get a store of fossils or minerals which cannot well be obtained elsewhere. Supposing he is desirous of having the geological systems well represented, he can always do so by the insertion of such paragraphs as those which appear in the Exchange columns of 'Science Gossip.' It is by well and thoroughly working separate localities in this fashion that the science of geology is best advanced. You hear a good deal about the "missing links," and it is an accepted fact that we, perhaps, do not know a tithe of the organic remains that formerly enjoyed life. Who knows, therefore, but that if you exhaust your district by the assiduous collection of fossils, you may not come across such new forms as may settle many moot points in ancient and modern natural history? The genuine love of geological study is always pretty fairly manifested in a student's cabinet. Science, like charity, begins at home. It impels a man to seek and explain that which is nearest to him, before he attempts the elucidation of what really lies in another man's territory!

      It is not necessary that the student should waste time in the field about naming or trying to remember the names of fossils, &c., on the spot. That can be best done at home, and the pleasure of "collecting" can thus be spun to its longest length. Box them, pack them well (or all your labour is lost), and name them at home. Or supposing you do not possess books which can assist you in nomenclature, carry your fossils or minerals, just as you found them, to the nearest and best local museum, where you will be sure to see the majority of them in their proper places and with their proper names. Copy these, and when you arrange your specimens in the cabinet, either get printed cards with the following headings—

      Genus_____________________________________ Species___________________________________ Formation_________________________________ Locality__________________________________

      (which can always be obtained at a cheap rate from the London dealers), or else set to work and copy them yourself in a good plain hand, so that there is no mistaking what you write. As far as possible, in each drawer or drawers representing a geological formation, arrange your specimens in natural-history order—the lowest organisms first, gradually ascending to the higher. By doing so, you present geological and zoological relationship, so that they can be taken in at a glance. You further make yourself acquainted with the relations of the fossils in a way you never would have done, had you been content to huddle them together in any fashion, so that you had them all together. Glass-topped boxes, again, are very useful in the cabinet, especially for delicate or fragile fossils, as people are so ready to take them in their hands when they are shown, little thinking how soon a cherished rarity may be destroyed, never to be replaced. Pasteboard trays, made of stiff green paper, squared by the student according to size, can also be so arranged as that the drawer may be entirely filled, and so the danger of shaking the contents about may be removed. Each tray of fossils ought to have the above-mentioned label fastened down in such a way as that it cannot by accident get changed by removal.

      The spring and summer time are fast approaching, and we know of nothing that will so much assist in their rational enjoyment as the adoption of some study in natural science. Botany, entomology, ornithology, geology, are all health-affording, nature-loving pursuits.