•l;; 



The Sydney Technological Museum. 



.Open to the general public every afternoon of tht year except Good 



Friday and Christmas Day. 



Wi ex Days ... ••• ••• ' '" r > l'- 1 "- 



Sundays ... ••• ••• - u> r> I'- 111 - 



Open to Country Visitors from 9 a.m. 



" The Sydney Technological Museum is a bureau of information 

 to which the public can appeal at any time concerning matters relating 



to the natural resources of the colony. Thus, for instance, if a 

 breeder of sheep wishes to have a report on the class of wool he is 

 growing or desires to change the strain of its fibre, he lias only to 

 send a sample to the Curator, and the required information will 

 be given by the wool expert. Then' are experts on the staff for 

 the leading branches of industry, and these furnish the latest data 

 on any subjects such as timbers, tans, dyes, gums, resins, kinos, 

 (Eucalyptus exudations), minerals, wool and economic products of the 

 animal kingdom, in fact, on almost anything which is to be found in 

 the industrial lii'e of the colony. 



The importance of Technological Museums to the commercial life 

 of a country is now recognised all over the world. The Imperial 

 Institute, and the Philadelphia Museum, U.S.A., are similar institu- 

 tions, and France, Belgium, Holland, Sweden and other countries have 

 Technological Museums. 



The real objects of forming museum collections are two, viz. : — 

 to advance or increase the knowledge of some given subject, and to 

 diffuse this knowledge amongst the general population of a country. 

 Summarised, these two objects may be briefly called research and 

 instruction, and these are primarily the main functions of the Sydney 

 Technological Museum. 



Visitors and others art' afforded every possible means of examin- 

 ing and studying the 100,000 specimens of which the museum con- 

 sists, and it is probably the largest of its kind in the southern 

 hemisphere. Its reputation is already world-wide, for during the past 

 year alone, enquiries were made from Tasmania, Queensland, Victoria, 

 West Australia. America, Germany, France and England, from firms 

 in search of information in regard to the colony's resources and raw 

 products. 



A Technological Museum may be defined as a museum in which 

 every exhibit is intended, not merely to satisfy the curiosity of the 

 visitor, but to impress upon him the value and importance of the 

 exhibit from a commercial or economic point of view. This has 

 special reference to the natural products of a country, and justifies 

 the establishment in such a museum of three main divisions : — botany, 

 zoology and mineralogy. These divisions, however, must not be 

 looked upon from a natural history point of view. Natural history 

 has no commercial aspect, technology has. and treats with natural 

 history objects in regard to their commercial importance. 



Thus in botany, the tree " Cypress Pine," Callitris robusta, R. 

 Br., from a natural history point of view, merely represents a certain 

 genus of a certain natural order, and a certain species in that genu-. 



