GIFT TO LIBRARY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19626, 3 May 1927, Page 10

GIFT TO LIBRARY.

THE MANTIeLL COLLECTION. MANY VALUABLE VOLUMES. [by telegraph.-—own correspondent.] WELLINGTON. Mondav A valuable collection of between 400 and 500 volumes has been presented to the Alexander Tarn bull Library by Mrs. Walter Mantel!, of Sydney Street, Wellington. The volumes will be kept together as a "Mantell Collection." They are the collection of three generations of the family. The son was the well-known Mr. Walter G. Mantel!, who practised as a dentist in Wellington. The father was Mr. W. B. D. Mantell, the holder of various public positions in the early days of the Dominion, and later a member of the Government, and still later a member of the Legislative Council. The cranrlfather was Gideon A. Mantel!, an English medical practitioner, but better known as a geologist of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The library includes rare works on New Zealand, and many editions of noted English authors. In addition there are many books on the geology of Sussex and geology generally, these being mainly the collection" of the grandfather. The collection also includes manuscripts of W. B. Mantell"!. journeys in New Zealand, especially in the South Island, and of Gideon Mantell's works on geology and anatomy. The gift has a!readv been acknowledged by the Hon. R. F." Bollard, by whose department the Tarnball Library is controlled.