ORGANIZATION OF BOTANICAL MUSEUMS. 20I 



disturb the bottle so as to wet the cork till the cement has 

 been applied and has hardened for one or two days. Filtration 

 of the alcohol along the junction of cork and bottle, with the 

 formation of an alcohol film on its upper surface, is fatal to 

 success. When applied the cement should be rather dense in 

 consistence, and, by aid of a spatula, should be spread evenly 

 over the cork, and be arched over from the bottle edge. If 

 left undisturbed, the whole will have hardened, in from two to 

 four days, into a hard and tenacious mass. Its surface can 

 then be sand-papered over ; or, if a flaw or crack has appeared, 

 some of the surrounding cement should be cut out, and a fresh 

 application should be given, so as to fill up the deficiency and 

 cover anew the entire cement surface. Finally, on a large 

 turn-table, two successive coats of deep blue enamel paint (this, 

 as experience will demonstrate, is the color that best accords 

 with nearly all specimens) can be applied over the cement and 

 neck of the bottle to just beneath the lower level of the cork. 



{e) Arrangement of preparations. — When properly set 

 out and classified the real value of museum preparations 

 becomes evident. For this end three distinct but correlative 

 departments should be developed, (i) the morphologico-physio- 

 logical, (2) the taxonomic, (3) the pathological. This will 

 mean at times, either the duplicating of specimens or of refer- 

 ence descriptions, but the results attained are such as to 

 justify us in saying that museum organization should be the 

 great educational advance of the near future. Let us see how 

 we might proceed here. Under the first department, series of 

 seedlings can be set out to illustrate modes of germination and 

 relation to environment ; or series of axes for upright growth, for 

 storing, for climbing, for twining, for defense, and for assimila- 

 tion ; or series of leaves that are analogously modified as the last ; 

 or series of flowers that illustrate relation of parts to each other, 

 their modes of insertion, their shape, their adaptation to 

 environmental agents; or series of fruits that demonstrate de- 

 hiscence or consistency, modes of dissemination, etc. — these 

 and many others that might be named indicate possible lines 

 of arrangement. The principle is equally applicable to the 

 cryptogams. 



