PRESER VA TION OF FEA THER WORK. 3 



curator needs all the resources of science to protect the relics that primitive man made 

 in the younger world, and his posterity may never make again. Modern museums have 

 become temples of refuge perhaps more sacred, when the spirit of barbarous man is per- 

 mitted to revisit the troubled earth, than the temples reared for the worship of the 

 Creator and Father of all the peoples on earth, and consecrated by that worship through 

 the centuries. 



So it happens that a fine collection of "Cook relics" is now in the Australian 

 Museum in Sydney, which was first offered to this Museum but declined, perhaps from 

 the feeling, still strong, that Cook's memory was not sweetened by his acts on this group 

 or his legacy to the inhabitants who so hospitably received him and even worshipped 

 him as Lono, chief among their gods. The very interesting specimens are well cared 

 for in the Australian Museum, and the Director of the Bishop Museum (although not 

 consulted in the matter) deems them better placed than in the present crowded Bishop 

 Museum. Australians also remember the wonderful survey that Cook made of their 

 eastern coast; the memories of Botany Bay bring pilgrims to that beach where Sir Joseph 

 Banks found so many botanical specimens; and perhaps the best memorial statue of 

 Cook stands in Sydney. I had myself hoped to collect in one account all the scattered 

 mementos of Cook, especially the authentic specimens found in the many museums of 

 the world. The notes made in the museums and the "genealogy" of each specimen 

 remained unpublished. The subject did not seem to exactly fit into the plan of "the 

 Deed of Trust", for they were indeed relics of an Anglo-Saxon and not of a Polynesian 

 and all the Polynesian implements that form so important a share of the "relics" could 

 not change the flavor of the central figure: the notes may finally appear elsewhere. 



To return to the important subject of the preservation of the delicate fabrics of 

 the Hawaiian feather work, the danger of deterioration, at least in the climate of these 

 islands, is not confined to the ravages of the innumerable insect and vegetable pests, 

 but the great actinic energy of the light acts very unfavorably on the feathers, more 

 especially of the yellow 00; the red of the iiwi is far more resistant. Even in a room so 

 darkened that a visitor has to adapt the eyes to the small amount of light before seeing 

 clearly, the cloaks and capes perceptibly lost color in a few years, and the Director de- 

 vised a case to protect the more valuable ahuula from the insidious ravages of light as 

 well as from atmospheric and living enemies. An account of this was published in the 

 Annual Report of the Director for 1915,' but from its intimate connection with the sub- 

 ject of feather work it seems well to repeat the illustrations with a somewhat extended 

 description. This case was made by the Art Metal Company of Jamestown, New York, 

 and is well shown in Fig. i. 



The case idea was suggested by a very good one in the Dresden Museum, but 

 the construction for the Bishop Museum needs was quite different, and as transportation 



'Occasional Papers, VI, No. 3, p. 134. 



