| 202 of both ancient and modern artists; specimens of scripture pieces, natural history, buildings, view of cities, moonlight scenes, wars, misers, philanthropists, kings, angels with wings, dead and dying men, youth and buoyancy, and decripit [decrepit] old age; views of water spouts, castles, heathen gods, and other things too numerous to mention. On many of these pictures there are groups of full grown people, all as natural as life: others of horses, dogs, and men; one of this kind is beautiful beyond description, and as natural as life. There are also many beautiful specimens of pictorial needlework-one of which, a large ancient piece, about 8 or 9 feet square, is a representation of Belshazzar's feast, with the several personages present, full grown, a table of viands and fruits before thom [them], the hand and writing seen upon the wall, and consternation upon the face of the king and others. The letters in which it is written are Hebrew, but instead of going from right to left they go from the top to the bottom-every part but this is very natural. You then go into a Sculpture gallery which is filled with statues of every form, grade, shape, and age. There are upwards of one hundred and fifty figures, containing grace, beauty, symmetry, all but the life; by ancient and modern artists; in Parian, Pentelicum, and other marbles; alabaster, ivory, china, plaster of paris, wax, terra-cotta, bronze, bisque, and other compositions. Here are statues of warriors, heroes, poets, historians, farmers, kings, queens, lords, gentlemen, ladies, brigands, saints, contending parties, dying gladiators, Brahmin priests, in their costume, heathen gods, and a great variety of beasts, of various descriptions.
You next are shown every variety of antiquities and curiosities-Indian dresses, from India, as well as North America, and New Zealand. There is also, Chinese tress boxes, tables, turned work, painting, carving, books, &c., &c.-I must say that these specimens show the greatest ingenuity, and represent anything but ignorance, awkwardness, and barbarism, with which they are generally charged. Coins, both ancient and modern, of all nations; American shin-plasters, gold and silver ore, antique carvings, deities, from Hindoostan and other places, ancient armour [armor] of all kinds, and missiles of every description, and from all parts: specimens of ancient newspapers, boxes, watches, match-lock, and other ancient guns-pistols, swords, scimeters [scimitars], bows and arrows of different kinds, shoes, slippers, Gods and Goddesses, tables, chairs, needlework, petrefaction [petrifaction] of fishes, snakes, shells, &c., some of them divided and polished with the bones, and inside as natural as life. Skins, feathers, caps, &c. &c., manuscripts of different kinds, and ancient books of every description-two MSS, in Hebrew, one rolled after the form of Jeremiah's or Ezekiel's roll, or two sticks-MSS of the Koran in Arabic. Egyptian, with hieroglyphics that resembles very much the "Egyptian record," they were taken from a stone engraving-records and books, in Sancrit [Sanskrit?], Hindoo [Hindu]; Samaritan, Persians, Chinese, Gavanese, Taetian, Burmese, Telenga, written the talipot polmina leaf, in India; and old Bible written in Latin, on parchment, specimens of ancient Bibles, and other MSS; and every thing that is curious, beautiful, antique, and interesting.
You are next shown all kinds of birds of every species, beasts and fishes of every kind and size, and of every tint and hue, stuffed as natural as life, from all parts of the earth; there are thousands of the feathered tribe, of all kinds, from the eagle and ostrich, down to the smallest humming bird. Snakes from the great boa, to the least of the reptile kind, crocodiles, alligators, &c. &c. Some thousands of shells, of every shape, shade and tint, one I should think would weigh two hundred pounds-Then there is every genus of the butterfly, caterpillar, beetle, and every kind of insect; you are shown every variety of minerals, from every mine in the earth, and from every cave of the sea; you are then shown every kind of anatomy, bones and fossils, two skeletons of the human system, and representations of the different parts of the human body, laid open, as natural as life; with the bones, ligaments, arteries, veins, muscles, nerves, brain, &c., laid open; the hands, the head, the neck, the legs, the ear and eye unfolded, and their mysteries and secret operations made manifest; and all their connecting parts developed. There is a specimen of a mummie [mummy], but not so perfect as we have; it has the linen around it, and is enclosed in a box which is covered with hieroglyphics, and Egyptian characters; another standing up, not to be opened, enclosed in a case which rudely represents a human being, there is also a great many hieroglyphics on this. There are busts, and heads of every shape, which would be very interesting no doubt to phrenologists; there are bones and fossils, part of the head bone of the mammoth, two feet wide, I should think or upwards; two and a half feet high, solid where it seems to be broken; the teeth that are in it, are grinders, and are about eight inches apart, and will measure two inches through. I think it must have had outer teeth, besides those, as these are so close to each other and so differently situated in the head, to any that I have seen before. I should think that with those, it would have power to bite iron in
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