STUDIES ON MUSEUMS AND KINDKED INSTITUTIONS. 88*) 



importance institutions for the increase and ditlusion of knowlcdj^e.*' 

 The society which composes the institute has about 0,000 members," 

 who pay $5 entrance fee and annual dues, and is divided into 27 

 scientific and artistic sections, which meet in different buiidinos. At 

 the head is a president with a board of 52 trustees and 11 different 

 committees. The members also are organized into a council and 8 

 committees. The whole establishment is under the nominal control of 

 the University of the State of New York (see under Albany). It 



of material which is continually flowing in from the many expeditions, donations, 

 and purchases, can not he j)roperly attended to nor scientifically treated. The 

 enijiloyees are therefore overburdened, m\ evil which 1 encountered in many of the 

 American museums. Their outward splendors are out of proportion to the number 

 and position of the scientists employed in them. The relatively small salaries usual in 

 the United States, the instability of the positions (even under political influence), 

 and the absence of the pension system contrast unfavorably with the conditions pre- 

 vailintr iu Europe, where museums are better regulated and the positions more secure, 

 and are more in consonance with the principles of fairness. Certainly museum 

 employees do not command the same respect and enjoy the same rights in the Union 

 as in the Old World. The employee is at a disadvantage against the influential 

 powers who furnish to the museums the means of existence, is too nmch dependent 

 upon them, and too nmch restrained in his rights. So much the more worthy of 

 unstinted admiration are the idealism and the splendid achievements of many scien- 

 tific men working under unfavorable conditions. 



The lack of a central expert administration m the New York ^luseum [a director 

 has since been nominated. — 1903] is evident from the fact that all possible colors of 

 l>ackgrounds and labels are met with, as well as greatly varied methods of mounting, 

 which are by no means all worthy of imitation. 



The animal groups are excellently mounted. The accessories of leaves and flowers 

 are carefully cast in wax and consecpiently transparent and very true to nature, but 

 somewhat obtrusive. There is too muchof this good work, for the attention is diverted 

 from the object of the exhibition. 



Tiie manner of preserving the great skin collection in single tin boxes, with light 

 traj's of wood and ])asteboard piled high one upon another, is inconvenient in the 

 narrow rooms in which they are kept, although these boxes, whose lids can betaken 

 I iff or tightly fastened with bolts, may in themselves be very practical. These travs 

 are disinfected with bisulphide of carbon, which must often be renewed, and can be 

 neither agreeable nor wholesome for the employees. 



The butterflies of the exhibition collection are displayed in desks in a peculiar 

 way, each specimen in a little pasteboard box by itself, covered with glass, on a thin 

 gypsum plate adapted to its form — an arrangement which requires much si)ace and 

 produces, on the whole, a monotonous effect, however pretty each specimen may 

 look. On page 32 of the Animal Report. for 1899 there is an illustration of such a 

 clumsy l>utterfly case. The makers of this method of preparation, Denton Brothers, 

 of Wellesley, Mass., received at the Paris Exposition of 1900, a gold medal for their 

 "collection and preservation of butterflies." 



I ,do not, liowever, wish to be misunder.«tood. The American .Museum of Natural 

 History offers .something (piite extraordinary and stands relatively upon a very high 

 plane, .«o that one not only may, but willingly does, overlook minor defects. Besides, 

 what mnseuin can be called faultless. I am convinced that this magniflcently 

 founded institution, ni its further development, will in every respect be worth 

 imitating. 



"In 1902, 7,215 members. 



