Sacramento Daily Record Union

THE MINERAL CABINET.
Library Trustees—The Missing Specimens.

The Trustees of the State Library met last evening. Present, Judge Belcher, and Messrs. Edgerton and Freeman, and Librarian Wallis. By invitation there were present also the Trustees of the Mineral Cabinet now in possession of the Library Trustees, State Mineralogist Irelan and his Assistant Mr. Snyder, R. O. Cravens, ex-State Librarian, Colonel Belcher and Mr. Bell. Mr. Wallis stated that he had asked the Board to meet to arrange for the transfer of the mineral cabinet to the new Trustees, who had asked that it be turned over to them. He also referred to stories that had been in circulation concerning missing specimens from the cabinet, and he desired the Board to examine into the matter thoroughly. He presented his affidavit, setting forth that he had not, on taking charge of the library, received any catalogue of the cabinet, nor had he ever seen one, or knew of the existence of any. Since the story had gone out that some such document existed, affiant had caused inquiry to be made of the ex-Librarian (Cravens), as to the fact, and search had been instituted, and in one of the drawers of the cabinet the supposed catalogue had been found. A long and rather informal consultation was then had between the two Boards as to how to transfer the cabinet so as to make a record of what would be delivered, and to pass receipts for the same. Judge Belcher and Mr. Freeman took up and examined the bundles of manuscript referred to as a catalogue. Both gentlemen discovered that it is rather an index to the cases, and with scores of numbers left blank and it did not appear to be any such a catalogue as would enable the specimens to be identified with any certainty. Mr. Cravens, on inquiry made, explained that prior to the State buying the cabinet of Dr. Frey, it appointed a board of appraisers to examine the same, and if they decided it to be worth $13,000, they were authorized to pay that sum for it, and that was done. It was delivered in boxes, the specimens done up in paper, that was marked, but no catalogue of it was delivered to the State. A year, or a year and a half afterwards, the Library Trustees engaged a mineralogist and an assistant to classify the exhibits. The gentlemen entered upon that work, and made out the papers now found, and called them a catalogue. They arranged rows of numbers to classify the specimens, but probably because the classes did not fill, many of these numbers are left blank. He could not say whether the work was completed. Judge Belcher thought all the Board had to do was to turn over the property as it is to the new Board. Mr. Edgerton proposed to hire a mineralogist at $10 a day to catalogue the exhibits. Mr. Freeman doubted if the Library Trustees could use library money for that purpose; and after quite a debate, agreed with Judge Belcher, that in the absence of an original catalogue, and in the incomplete and uncertain character of the list now found, which in a large number of cases had but a number and a single word—as the name of a county or mining district, and so on—that any attempt to catalogue the cabinet into a receipt would be useless. The Cabinet Trustees said to the Library Trustees, that all they had to do was to take the cabinet as it is; any cataloguing the Library Trustees might do would be an aid to them, but if it was not done they would take it as it stands, and ask the Library Trustees to put a man in the room and see that they receipted for all they got. Judge Belcher could not see how they could receipt for each specimen, and identify them, if, as stated, hundreds of the specimens bore no numbers. Librarian Wallis explained that many of the specimens were not numbered, fully half of them are in drawers, and have been handled by visitors for years and misplaced, and some had been moved out of the places they originally occupied to make a better display in the glass cases above the drawers. It was impossible to keep a deputy at the elbow of every visitor, and pilfering was not difficult from the drawers. He said there had been talk of the Australian gold specimen and a gold nugget—alleged to be worth $5,000—being missing. He pointed to both on the table, and asked the Cabinet Trustees if he had not on their first call exhibited them, and he received an affirmative response. They had been kept in the office safe of recent years, because of the ease with which the cabinet could be robbed.

State Mineralogist Irelan gave it as his opinion that to catalogue the exhibits without classifying them would be of no special value, and be a long task, and, in the absence of an original catalogue, quite useless. Mr. Snyder was much of the same opinion. He had helped arrange the cabinet originally, was familiar with it, and could classify it easily. The entire company then adjourned to the cabinet-room. It is an ordinary chamber, with one door leading into the library and one into the main hall. Over the latter is an ordinary glass transom. About half the specimens are in drawers without locks, the others in glass cases with locks that any common desk key will fit. Because of the danger of pilfering, the heavy iron rods now running around the cases were put on last fall, and secured by patent trap locks. Examination showed that only a portion of the specimens bear numbers, and it would be simply impossible to identify them by the list now in possession of the Board. It was found also that several paper boxes marked gold, and supposed to have originally held gold specimens, are now empty. Some of them have been misplaced, and two or more specimens are to be seen in one box. Others, it was stated, had been stolen. The cabinets are crowded into a small room, the alleys are narrow, the drawers without fastenings, and the Boards both agreed that unless a watcher was at the elbow of every visitor, it would be a perfectly easy thing to pocket specimens at will, and even a dexterous hand could defy a watcher.

Mr. Irelan and Mr. Snyder both expressed their opinion of the high value of the collection, both for mineralogical and geological specimens, and especially because of duplicates that will find ready exchange for new specimens. On reassembling there was unanimous agreement by the Library Trustees to turn over the cabinet, as it is, to the new Trustees, with all the property attaching, and an order to that effect was made. Mayor Gregory said his Board would in a few days take possession; that its duty was simply to take whatever was turned over to it, and care for it. The Cabinet Trustees then retired, and the question came up as to whether Mr. Cravens, on retiring as Librarian, had turned over the cabinet list referred to, to Wallis. The latter denied that it had been done, and Mr. Cravens insisted that he had told Mr. Wallis that the list was in the cabinet drawer, and there the matter rests. During the remarks concerning the supposition that some specimens have been stolen, Trustee Freeman said that some years ago the Board knew that a party had abstracted specimens from the cases—at least the Board so believed. The man was detected, and left the country. It is understood that the person referred to was not followed up because of the difficulty of making the fact a legal certainty.