174 Naturalist at Large 



dwindled to one a year and that class only looked at about 

 half a dozen minerals. The glass models of plants in Cam- 

 bridge and the equally beautiful botanical models in the 

 Field Museum in Chicago interest and attract the public. 

 Samples of wood and dried foliage have absolutely no value 

 for exhibition. 



This is how I came to think up a new kind of museum. 

 The trustees of the Peabody Museum in Salem voted to 

 restore East India Hall to its original monumental sim- 

 plicity and to display here figureheads of ships and other 

 objects that are best seen from a distance. The Hall for 

 years had been filled with a jittery miscellany of zoological 

 objects. There was a good representation of the fauna of 

 Essex County, specimens excellently prepared. All else was 

 a miscellaneous accumulation, acquired through the years 

 from sea captains and others, of specimens which varied 

 in quality from the utterly revolting to a few really fine 

 things. It was easy to dispose of the repulsive material. 

 Some of it had scientific value and the rest of it, when 

 tossed out of a second-story window into the back yard 

 on Charter Street in Salem, was fought for by a swarm of 

 urchins, who carried the critters off in triumph. The police, 

 at first unbelieving and suspecting theft, soon became ac- 

 quiescent. 



The question was what to do with the few good things 

 which did not illustrate the zoology of Essex County. 

 These naturally presented a dilemma. I proposed discard- 

 ing them all. Then one day I chanced to lunch with Gus 

 Loring and Stephen W. Phillips, men of original mind and 

 deep learning, who had an honest sentimental feeling for 

 some of the objects I proposed to discard. It was quite ob- 



