42 NATURAL SCIENCE. July, 



cannot well do more than restrain openly unseemly conduct should it 

 ever take place. 



And here it may be stated that this Museum differs from most 

 others in the fact that it is open free to the public for every day 

 in the year save two, namely, Christmas Day and Good Friday, the 

 necessary cleansing being accomplished daily before the opening hour, 

 or after the closing hour, by the regular staff; and I think it will be 

 admitted that the Museum presents no signs of neglect in this 

 respect. 



With our own skilled artisan staff we succeeded in suspending the 

 skeleton of a large whale, weighing about six tons, under the roof 

 of the Natural History Museum, where it is well seen, and no 

 longer encroaches on valuable space, as it did when supported on 

 pillars in the basement hall. The method of suspension can be 

 freely commended for adoption in other Museums. Your attention 

 may also be directed to the methods of shelving devised for the 

 Mammals and for the Palaeontological Gallery ; they have many 

 manifest advantages respectively. 



During the same year we received on deposit, which was afterwards 

 changed into a permanent donation, the life-size model by the late Mr. 

 Birch for a proposed bronze statue of Lieutenant Hamilton. The 

 incident which this statue records, namely, the attack on the 

 Residency at Kabul, in the year 1879, is vigorously represented by the 

 figure of that gallant young Irishman ; and the statue has been, I 

 may add, since its erection, an object of special attraction to many 

 visitors. 



In the year 1891, some long-deferred additions to the strength of 

 the staff were at last sanctioned ; these would have been still more 

 acceptable had they been made in response to our earnest appeals 

 before the extra pressure of the previous two years came upon us. 



Under the temporary custody of Professor Johnson, which was 

 afterwards changed in 1892 to a permanent charge, the Herbarium 

 and Botanical Museum advanced considerably, and, indeed, in all 

 Departments great progress was made. 



The total attendances for the three years were as follows: — 1889, 

 218,880; 1890, 313,564; 1891, 344,071 ; and the Sunday attendances 

 were 1889, 40,599; 1890,61,386; and 1891, 58,000. 



In the years 1892, 1893, ^^^ 1894, the work of arrangement has also 

 progressed in all branches, but there are no very special circumstances 

 to be recorded here. Additions as they arrived have, so to speak, 

 dropped into the sections provided for them, and the various 

 arrangements for the good order and smooth working of the Estab- 

 lishment have operated, I believe, with satisfaction to all those 

 who are immediately concerned. The public attendances in 1892, 

 343,714, were very close to those of 1891 ; and in 1893 they reached 

 their maximum, namely, 367,645, or an average of over 1,000 a day, 

 although the Sunday attendances fell from 57,536, in 1892, to 51,894, 



