such institutions by city, State, or Federal Government would not have been considered a legitimate act. When the General Government came into the possession of extensive collections as the result of the Wilkes Exploring Expedition in 1842, they were placed in charge of a private organization, the National Institution, and later, together with other similar materials, in that of a corporation, the Smithsonian Institution, which was for a long period of years obliged to pay largely for their care out of its income from a private endowment. It was not until 18*76 that the existence of a National Museum, as such, was definitely recognized in the proceedings of Congresss, and its financial support fully provided for. In early days our principal cities had each a public museum, founded and supported by private enterprise. The earliest general collection was that formed at Norwalk, Conn., prior to the Revolution, by a man named Arnold, described as "a curious collector of American birds and insects." This it was which first awakened the interest of President John Adams in the natural sciences. He visited it several times, as he traveled from Boston to Philadelphia, and his interest culminated in the foundation of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1790 Dr. Hosack brought to America from Europe the first cabinet of minerals ever seen on this continent. The earliest public establishment was the Philadelphia Museum, founded by Charles Wilson Peale in 1785, which had for a nucleus a stuffed paddle-fish and the bones of a mammoth, and was for a time housed in the building of the American Philosophical Society. In 1800 it was full of popular attractions. The Baltimore Museum was managed by Rembrandt Peale, and was in existence as early as 1815 and as late as 1830. Earlier efforts wore made, however, in Philadelphia. Dr. Chovet, of that city, had a collection of wax anatomical models made by him in Europe; and Prof. John Morgan, of the University of Pennsylvania, who learned his method from the Hunters, in London, and Sué, in Paris, had begun to form such a collection before the Revolution. The Columbian Museum and Turell's Museum, in Boston, are spoken of in the annals of the day; and there was a small collection in the attic of the State House in Hartford. The Western Museum, in Cincinnati, was founded about 1815, by Robert Best, M. D., afterward of Lexington, Ky., who seems to have been a capable collector, and who contributed matter to Goodman's American Natural History. In 1818 a society styled the Western Museum Society was formed among the citizens, which, though hardly a scientific organization, seems to have taken a somewhat liberal and public-spirited view of what a museum should be. With the establishment of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia in 1812, and the New York Lyceum of Natural History, the history of American scientific museums had its true beginning.
The Question of Tertiary Man.—The antiquity of man and an account of anthropological museums were the chief topics discussed in the address of Mr. John Evans, President of the Anthropological Section of the British Association. The question of the antiquity of man, the author said, is susceptible of being separated from any speculations as to the generic descent of mankind; and even were it satisfactorily answered to-day, new facts might to-morrow come to light that would again throw the question open. On any view of probabilities, it is unlikely that we shall ever discover the exact cradle of our race, or be able to point to any object as the first product of the industry and intelligence of man. We may, however, the author thought, hope that from time to time fresh discoveries may be made of objects of human art, under such circumstances and conditions that we may infer with certainty that at some given point in the world's history mankind existed, and in sufficient numbers, for the relics that attest this existence to show a correspondence among themselves, even when discovered at remote distances from each other. After reviewing the course of discovery of prehistoric man, and the considerations on which the attempt is based to show that he existed in the Tertiary, Mr. Evans declared his conclusion that on the whole the present verdict as to Tertiary man must be in the form of "not proven." When we consider the vast amount of time comprised in the Tertiary period, with its three great principal subdivisions of the Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene, and when we
