HISTORY 1 9 



ploration of the Great Barrier Reef of Australia in the steamship 

 "Croyden" in 1896; and an expedition to the Maldive Islands in the 

 Indian Ocean in the "Amra," 1901-02. 



In 1898 Agassiz resigned the directorship of the Museum, but 

 retained his quarters there, giving it his financial support, and con- 

 tinuing to enrich it with the results of his scientific expeditions. 



After his resignation, the Museum was managed for a short time 

 by Dr. W. McM. Woodworth, one of the younger Agassiz's assist- 

 ants in various of his expeditions. Dr. Woodworth was succeeded by 

 Mr. Samuel Henshaw, who had been on the staff of the Museum 

 since 1892. After Alexander Agassiz's death in 1910, without the 

 stimulus of his interest or his financial support, the management of 

 the Museum became a trying and discouraging matter. But Hen- 

 shaw with a whole-hearted and unwavering enthusiasm, and an 

 almost unparalleled devotion, gave his entire existence to furthering 

 the welfare of the Museum, to upholding its traditions and maintain- 

 ing the high level of its scientific output. This he was the better 

 able to do from his wide range of accurate knowledge, an invaluable 

 asset in editing the reports of the specialists on the collections of 

 Alexander Agassiz's expeditions, which were still coming in to swell 

 the Museum publications. These, from its earliest history, have 

 given the institution a distinguished international position among 

 its peers, and include today 73 octavo and 53 quarto volumes, which 

 are in quality and quantity fully equal to the publications of scientific 

 societies of the first rank. On the completion of his thirty-fifth year 

 as a member of the staff, Henshaw resigned his directorship on No- 

 vember I, 1927. He was succeeded by Dr. Thomas Barbour, who 

 has been connected with the Museum ever since his graduation from 

 Harvard. 



Since Dr. Barbour's appointment, the Museum has been enriched, 

 not only by collections made on expeditions of his own, to the East 

 and West Indies, and many portions of Central and South America, 

 but also from numerous expeditions of the staff, and by purchase, 

 and exchange. The Museum collections are now, without exaggera- 

 tion, of inestimable value. 



As the study collections and opportunities for exploration and re- 

 search are the chief desiderata of a university museum, it was de- 

 cided to curtail the space devoted to the exhibitions open to the pub- 



