An 18th-century shell collection from Captain James Cook’s third voyage, thought lost for more than 40 years, has been returned to English Heritage after being saved from a skip in “nothing short of a miracle”. The collection, containing more than 200 specimens including an extinct species and several believed to have been sent back from Cook’s ill-fated voyage, is to go on public display for the first time in more than 100 years. The items had been thrown out by a university, but were rescued from the skip by a retired scientist. The collection, which serves as a record of Britain’s role in g…
