and Laboratory Methods. 



2455 



The Museum. 

 IX. 



THE CASE. 



It seems possible that a few simple forms in cases with a reasonable flexibil- 

 ity in dimensions will meet all the requirements of the museum curator. Con- 

 siderable ingenuity can be expended in devising cases of varying forms, but it 

 hardly strengthens the impressive effectiveness of a museum equipment to fill 

 halls with an allotment of cabinet inventions. If the purposes of a case be 

 analyzed they will be found to embrace, primarily, room for an object to be so 

 exhibited that it can be seen from the outside of the case to the best advantage : 

 secondarily, security against theft and dust ; and thirdly a requisite workmanship 

 and material, to make it a pleasing visual 

 object. As to the point of dimensions 

 cases must be high or low, deep or shal- 

 low, small or large ; as to location they 

 are wall cases or floor cases. In these 

 aspects you cannot introduce further 

 variation except by suspejision. an exi- 

 gence rarely contemplated. As to shape 

 the element of diversity may be consid- 

 reably extended and generally with unfor- 

 tunate results. While, under exception- 

 able circumstances, as in art museums, 

 or gem exhibits, round, polygonal, el- 

 liptical, sand glass, trimmed and compo- 



'•^fi<r><^fWF??9'i'^rr^<'9<F^9<^99 



Fig. 37. 



-T-case showing front on hall and 

 alcove. 



■I 



Fig. 38. — T-shaped pin case. 



site cases may be introduced in the 

 equipment of special rooms, or for the 

 more aesthetic presentation of rare and 

 decorative objects, usually it will be 

 found satisfactory to confine all forms 

 practically to the parallelopipedon or box, 

 whether flat, produced, inclined, or 

 cubical, and to have the glass fronts 

 plane. 



A case which might seem to offer a 

 wide departure from the above stringent 

 recommendation, and yet a case which 

 has always appealed to the writer, in 

 spite of very influential strictures against 

 it, is a case used in some halls of the 

 New York museum, though probably in 

 future to be abandoned. 



It is a peculiar and admirable form 

 of pier or alcove case developed by Mr. 



