Museum" well expresses the intimate association between 

 the Museum and the city in the past, and, with the generous 

 support accorded by City Council, a new era of develop- 

 ment and increased service to the public is opened. Its suc- 

 cess depends now on a liberal financial support from the peo- 

 ple at large. The Museum is dependent upon the contribu- 

 tions of members for all permanent improvements, for the 

 increase of the collections, and for the maintenance of its 

 educational and scientific work. The City Maintenance Ap- 

 propriation will be barely sufficient to meet the fixed charges 

 necessary to prevent deterioration of the collection's. To 

 provide a stable financial basis for the Museum a general en- 

 dowment fund and special endowments for particular lines 

 of work should be created in the near future. 



History of the Museum 



The Director is desirous of accumulating and putting on 

 record material for a history of the Museum and to this end 

 he has printed in the Bulletin, from time to time, such his- 

 torical notes as he has been able to gather. These have shown 

 that the Museum originated in collections maintained by the 

 Charleston Library Society at least as early as 1798, a note- 

 book having been found which records the specimens pre- 

 sented to the Museum from 1798 to 1808. It is not known 

 whether the Museum was in existence earlier than 1798. but 

 even so it is probably the oldest museum of general natural 

 history in America, the only rival of which we are aware 

 being the Harvard collection of minerals, which was begun 

 in 1794. 



In 18 1 5 the Museum was transferred to the auspices of the 

 newly organized Literary and Philosophical Society of South 

 Carolina, which appointed Dr. Felix L'Herminier curator 

 and for many years maintained the Museum in Chalmers 

 Street. In 1850 interest in the Museum was stimulated by 

 the meeting in Charleston of the American Association for 



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