Fossil and Petrology collections, New South Wales The Petrology Collection contains 70,000 rocks and thin sections. It was started in the 1870s as two separate collections, one with 9,000 rocks and the other with 43000 thin sections. Hand written catalogues exist for each. After 1912, only one collection was continued up to the present day. The two old subcollections have much more significance than their sizes would indicate, because much of the material comes from old mine sites, and many of these are no longer available for sampling. Furthermore a few samples, have world significance, such as the thin section from the very sample of Copeton dolerite
Nature study students, who were influenced by this philosophy, went on to provide the nature study knowledge in public schools. It was Agassiz who coined the phrase, "Study nature, not books." Nature study can be described as "conceiving of the movement as a loose coalition of communities composed of individuals, societies, and institutions able to find some common ground in the study and appreciation of the natural world". In "Leaflet I: What Is Nature-Study?" from a 1904 collection nature study lessons, Liberty Hyde Bailey presented the following description of nature study: NATURE-STUDY, as a process, is seeing the things that one looks