1897] THE PROVINCIAL MUSEUM 391 
Museums would be brought into direct communication with each 
other, and the transference of specimens to centres where they would 
be of most use would be immensely facilitated, while the small 
museums would naturally become agents of supply of material 
obtainable in their districts. The whereabouts of material for the 
specialist would be better known, and be more readily available. 
The linking up and increased usefulness of provincial museums 
would provide a healthy stimulus to local scientific societies, would 
result in increased and more thorough field work, and do much to 
aid that federation of remote scientific workers which is so desirable. 
Moreover, it must not be forgotten that such a chain of museums 
offers the best means whereby the collections of the humblest and 
most distant worker might be conveyed to the one best fitted to 
deal with them. 
The plan we advocate is crude, but designedly so, for elaboration 
provokes criticism of detail rather than of principles, and it is the 
latter which are all-important to determine in connection with the 
present phase of the provincial museum question. 
HERBERT BO.ron. 
