CABINET, the most retired place in the finest part of a building, set apart for writing, studying, or preserving any thing that is precious. A complete apartment consists of a ball, anti-chamber, chamber, and cabinet, with a gallery on one side. Hence we say, a cabinet of paintings, cu riosities, &c.
CAnixrr, in natural history. This term is applied, with some latitude, to any small or select collection of natural curiosities, without regarding whether the articles it comprises be contained within a cabinet or not. Thus, for instance, it is not un frequent with us to speak of cabinets of animals, cabinets of birds, of fishes, rep tiles, and other similar articles, as a mode of expressing such an assemblage of natu ral history, as may not be of sufficient im portance to deserve the epithet of a mu seum. The word cabinet, in its usual acceptation with the naturalist, is not therefore confined solely to the boxes, press, or chest of drawers, in which arti cles of curiosity are contained, but im plies at once both the repository itself, and the articles arranged in it.
Cabinets of fossils, shells, and corals, have the drawers sometimes divided for this purpose into small compartments, by means of an inner frame work, that lets into the bottom of the drawer ; but trays of various sizes, made either of card or pasteboard, have a much neater appear ance, and are preferred by many, as being more commodious, and more easily shift ed from one p art of the drawer to another, as the addition of new acquisitions in any particular tribe or genus may require. Nothing can be more desirable than to have the cabinets well made, that the drawers may slide with perfect ease in their proper recesses in the press. The drawers should fit so close, when shut up, as to preclude the entrance of dust of any kind. The cabinet itself should be also placed in a dry situation, as there are few articles of natural history that are not affected in a greater or less degree by an excess of damp, or even heat. The drawers are uniformly made shallow, the bottom of each is lined with cork, and the top is covered with glass, through which the insect may be seen, without being exposed to the air, or accidents that would arise from their being touched by the incautious specta tor.
Cabinets for insects are built of vari. ous sizes, from those which contain ten or a dozen drawers to others that include above a hundred. They are usually of mahogany, but it is immaterial whether they be made of mahogany or wainscot ; some have them of cedar, but seldom of deal, or any other wood of a soft texture. The drawers may be from fifteen to thir ty inches in length, the same, or nearly the same, in breadth, and about two or three inches in depth. The cork with which the bottoms are lined must be cho sen as free from cracks and holes as pos sible ; it should be also glued into the drawers, to prevent its warping, and be filed or cut very level ; and after this the irregularities on the surface of the cork should be rubbed down with pumice stone, till the whole is rendered perfect ly smooth, before the paper is pasted over it. The paper should be of a fine smooth and even grain, but neither very stout• nor highly stiffened with size, lest it should turn the points of the pins, when placing the insects in the drawers. The top of every drawer must be cover Ccl with a plate of glass, to prevent the admission of dust or air. This plate is usually fitted into a frame of the same size as the drawer, and is made either to slide in a groove, or let in on a rabbet ; the latter contrivance is much the best, because, in sliding the grass along the groove, if any of the pins happen to stand so high as to touch the frame work, the insects will be injured by the jerk, or, as more frequently happens in this case, be broken to pieces. On the contrary, when the frame falls in upon a rabbet, it is of no consequence whether the edge of the frame sinks into the drawer below the level of the heads of the pins on which the insects are placed or not ; it is only necessary to observe, that the glass does not press upon the pins, since it is the glass only that can come in contact with them.