The zoological collection comprises above 26,000 specimens, partly collected by the two zoologists themselves, partly presented or purchased; they consist of 320 mammalia, 1500 birds, 950 amphibiæ, 2000 fish, 6550 conchyliæ, 13,000 insects, 950 crustacea, 500 molluscs, 60 skeletons, 50 skulls, 120 nests, and 150 eggs.
The botanical portion embraces several very comprehensive and valuable herbaria and collections of seeds (in selecting the latter the capabilities of the various portions of the Empire were
carefully borne in mind, with reference to the power of propagating the plant), besides a large quantity of fruits and flowers of tropical plants, preserved in acetic acid or alcohol, as also Indian and Chinese drugs, and specimens of ornamental and useful woods.
The mineralogical, petrographical, and palæontological collections consist of several thousand specimens of mineralogy and petrifactions, part collected by the geologist himself, part presented by scientific Institutes, or private donors, or purchased.
The ethnographic collection embraces 376 objects, such as weapons of the most diverse form, house utensils and implements of labour, ornaments, amulets, carvings, idols, headgears, masks, pieces of clothing, models, textile fabrics, manufactures in bark, musical instruments, Cingalese manuscripts, as also fragments of palm-leaves, bamboo-reeds, and bark, all variously transcribed. Some of these various objects are the more interesting, as furnishing, so to speak, the last proofs of the aboriginal skill which, in proportion to the increasing intercourse of the savage tribes with European civilization, is rapidly diminishing, and in all the principal colonies may be considered as already extinguished.
The anthropological collection consists of 100 skulls of various races of men, and includes a complete Bushman-skeleton, besides a great variety of interesting physiological and pathologico-anatomical preparations.
But it is not merely in its general, nautical, scientific, and
politico-economical features that the voyage of the Novara has reacted in a suggestive and instructing manner upon those who were privileged to belong to the Expedition. It has widened the horizon of political knowledge, presented the opportunity of instituting interesting comparisons between the conditions of the various countries visited, and has furnished many an instructive insight into the transmuting process, which the possession of civil and religious liberty effects upon the material welfare and intellectual energy of every race and land, from pole to pole. And although mankind is subjected to the powerful influences of climate, nourishment, soil, and natural phenomena in general, yet it is not less certain that by freely developing the physical and intellectual powers, those influences may be materially limited in extent of operation, and modified in practice; so that, while we see a people inhabiting a country, where Nature has lavished her utmost treasures of fertility, beauty, and loveliness, languishing spiritually and physically under the oppression of a despotic power, and the land itself hastening to impoverishment and decay, we perceive on the other hand that another, far less favourably situated, has been able under free institutions to become by its own unaided energy the marvel of all nations, colonizing every region of the earth, and extending its commercial and political importance over the entire universe.
What a melancholy picture of stagnation and decay is presented by the Spanish and Portuguese possessions in Asia,
Africa, and the West Indies, by the Slave-empire of Brazil, and the Hispano-American Republics, with their mestizo dictators, as compared with the mighty development and glorious promise of the British colonies in Asia, Africa, America, and Australia, governed as they are by constitutional laws, and enjoying full civil and religious rights! Here the energy of free self-governing men, aided by a keen spirit of enterprise and investigation, has obtained a victory over all impediments of a primeval nature, and not alone opened to European civilization new channels for the extension of commerce and industry, but also accomplished important social and political reforms, for which many a civilized state in old Europe is still sighing in vain!