4'2i> 



KEI'OKT OK NATIONAL MUSEUM, IW^. 



recently })rocured furniture meet the rigorous reijuircMnents of to-day. 

 notwithstanding- pains have been taken to invent some new types of 

 cases. In the ethnological section, for example, are seen large glass 

 cases with wooden frames and clumsy supports, entirely destitute of 

 doors, the sides being made of plate and the top of ground glass. 

 One of the narrow sides of the frame can be unscrewed. The objects 

 are now hung either directly or by supports on >)oth sides of a mov- 

 able partition provided with a foot piece, which is then shoved into the 

 case. As these partitions are frequently not as high as the case itself, 

 they do not look well. They can also be used as backs bv shoving 



them in along the side (tig. 3-i). 

 If an object must be changed, or 

 is recpiired for study, the great 

 frame nuist be unscrewed with 

 the aid of several persons. As a 

 similar but much more elegant 

 and entirely dust-proof case with 

 iron framework and doors can 

 now l)e furnished, the principle 

 of the screwed frame that pre- 

 vailed fifty or one hundred years 

 ago can not b(^ reconmiended.^ I 

 also give an illustration of the con- 

 struction of the case top, with its 

 disproportionately heavy wood- 

 work in which, for stiti'ening, 

 there is riveted an inset of 

 wrought iron, half an inch thick 

 and -i inches wide, together with 

 an illustration of the wooden par- 

 tition (fig. 35). This partition is 

 11 feet long, 1^ inches thick, 5 feet 

 high ; its foot piece isl'-2 feet long, 

 1 foot 6 inches wide, 1 foot high. 

 The glass cases for the many large and often very remarkable and 

 beautifully displayed zoological and ethnographical groups also have 

 no doors, but nevertheless they have similar clumsy framework and 

 bases. In the horizontal show cases the ))ase has, indeed, the appear- 

 ance of a closet, but the space is hollow and unused. Other types of 

 glass cases in use in this museum are shown in figs. 86-37; fig. 30 is a 

 neat stjde; the supports are of gas pipe of from three-eighths to a half 

 inch in diameter, ))ut the small panels of the top injure it; fig. 37 shows 

 hanging shelves. Style fig. 38 is the hollow base and the inner 



" If this is compared with what the curator of this department says concerning 

 tiie cases in Euro])ean nniseums (G. A. Dorsey, Atnerican Anllirojiologid, n. s., I, 

 1899, p. 471), one can only exclaim: De (jiistihits mm cxt dii^jrHtandnin! 



h 



Fig. 35.— Field Columbian Museum. Top and 

 partition of oase shown in tig. M. 



