Xlvi PEOCEEDINGS, 



as early as possible to the Corresponding Societies Committee for 

 its report to the Conference of Delegates at Toronto in 1897. 



(2) That the formation of District Unions of Natural History- 

 Societies is highly desirable and would be of general advantage. 



(3) That the Committee of the Corresponding Societies be 

 requested to take ste])s to encourage the formation of District 

 Unions of Natural History Societies. 



(4) That it should be distinctly understood that the formation 

 of Unions would not in any way prevent the affiliation of individual 

 Societies of such Unions to the British Association as at present. 



Second Conference. 



The above recommendations were read by Mr. Abbott as the 

 Report of the sub-committee appointed at the first Conference, and 

 the report was received and adopted. A resolution was then passed 

 referring it to the Corresponding Societies Committee. 



A Federal Staff for Local Museums. — This was the subject of 

 a paper by Professor W. M. Flinders Petrie, D.C.L. 



His suggestions, Professor Petrie said, only affected a distribu- 

 tion of labour, and would rather economize than require extra 

 expenditure. 



In all local museums the main difficulty of the management 

 was that there was neither money nor work enough for a highly 

 trained and competent man. It was in any case impossible to get 

 a universal genius who could deal with every class of object equally 

 well, and. hardly any local museum could afford to pay for a first- 

 class curator on any one subject. These difficulties were entirely 

 the result of a want of co-operation. 



According to the report of the Committee in 1887, there were 

 fifty-six 1st class, fifty-five 2nd class, sixty-three 3rd class, and 

 thirty 4th class museums in the kingdom. Setting aside the last 

 two classes as mostly too poor to pay except for mere caretaking, 

 there were 111 in the other classes; and deducting a few of the 1st 

 class museums as being fully provided, there were 100 museiims all 

 of which endeavoiir to keep up to the mark by spending perhaps 

 £30 to £200 a year on a curator. 



The practical course would seem to be their union, in providing 

 a federal staff, to circulate for all piirposes requii'ing skilled know- 

 ledge, leaving the permanent attention to each place to devolve on 

 a mere caretaker. If half of these 1st and 2nd class museums 

 combined in paying £30 a year each, there would be enough to pay 

 three first-rate men £500 a year apiece, and each museum would 

 have a week of attention in the year from a geologist, and the same 

 from a zoologist and an archa?ologist. 



The duties of such a staff would be to arrange and label the new 

 specimens acquired in the past year, taking sometimes a day, or 

 perhaps a fortnight, at one place ; to advise on alterations and 

 improvements ; to recommend purchases required to fill up gaps ; 

 to note duplicates and promote exchanges between museums ; and 

 to deliver a lecture on the princij)al novelties of their own subject 



