JOUlJ^AL OF PROCEEDINGS. 127 



to the same purpose are brought together from whatever country, and 

 of whatever age. Articles of dress, ornament, or food, implements for 

 their preparation, utensils for domestic use, nets, weapons, and the like 

 thus illustrate each other. 



Among the special collections, newly put together, we were much in- 

 terested in the very full one of the food, especially the vegetable food 

 of the different tribes of the North American Indians ; in the collection 

 of their cradles or analogous appliances for the care of infants ; in the 

 collection of musical instruments, or what was intended to answer the 

 purpose of music ; and in the fine pottery of the Arizonian and other 

 tribes. 



The museum is especially rich in stone implements of the North 

 American continent, mainly prehistoric; also in specimens of the sur- 

 vival of the art of working stone weapons of the finest kind, in some of 

 our native tribes. 



In the further development of the museum it may be thought best to 

 arrange the archaeological specimens in a sei^arate series, but, as to 

 America, it is not easy to draw a line between what is prehistoric, and 

 what belongs essentially to the present era. 



A great number of duplicates will soon be ready for exchange. Be- 

 sides proper duplicates, freely available for exchange, there is, wherever 

 the materials and the subject admit of it, a selected series carefully 

 packed away in the lower part of the cases, or directly underneath the 

 typical specimens or specimens selected for exhibition. For public in- 

 spection in very large museums it is now- a recognized principle that 

 the half is better than the whole ; that typical specimens, those that 

 best exemplify the leading forms or plans, should be exhibited in prefer- 

 ence to full series of gradations and modifications. But the serious in- 

 vestigator needs all the forms, and this selected students' series, which 

 is mostly out of sight, is carefully preserved for, and is accessible to, 

 his use. 



A great deal of important ethnological matter has of late years been 

 collected in the form of photographs, and it seems obviously important 

 that such collections should be systematically made and preserved, is 

 not on the large scale, yet in the compact and effective form of stereo- 

 scopic views. If the figures, the costumes, and the dwellings of our 

 various tribes still remaining are not perpetuated in this way very 

 promptly, much which is now easy to preserve will be irreirievably lost 

 to the future. 



In this connection we would suggest that it might be well to provide 

 a series of figures characteristic of the races of men, and especially of 

 the North American races and tribes. This would require considerable 

 room for exhibition and a great deal of judgment as to the mode of 

 getting up the material to be employed, and the extent to which this 

 kind of illustration should be introduced. 



This museum is very rapidly increasing, audit is remarkable that the 



