Book excerpt: Excerpt from Natural History Museums of the United States and Canada Alabama polytechnic institute museum, Auburn. P. H. Mell, director state experiment station in charge; G. F. Boyd, assistant. The fire that destroyed the main building in 1887, swept away the museum which contained a very full representation of all branches of science and was One of the best in the south. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.